Love Kills Slowly
by Istalindar
Summary: Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco were all friends at one point, until Draco refused the Dark Mark and was killed. The remaining three made a plan to save him, but the price for making it work may be too high to pay indefinitely.
1. The Past

I tried. I honestly did. But it seems that angsty, tragic stories are apparently my forte. So here's another one. It gets better though, promise. The beginning is AU, but it switches back to canon in a bit, or as canon as you can get with a Hermione/Draco relationship set in a timeframe after the books. But you'll see what I mean later on. I hope you like this, please review and tell me what you think.

The inspiration of this story was a music vid on YouTube called Make it Right by Sirrah78. All her videos are fab, I definitely, recommend them!

Hope you like, please review. Istalindar

&

"Hey sleepy." Hermione opened her eyes and blinked up at the smiling face of her boyfriend and smiled.

"Why are you awake?" She grumbled. Draco grinned.

"Because it's past ten and we have a class in a little less than forty-five minutes. I thought I'd get a head start in the bathroom."

"Cheater." Hermione muttered, snuggling deeper into the green duvet. She was in his room, in his bed, and she had no inclination to leave. He chuckled, scooping her up, duvet and all, and pulling her into his arms.

"I love you." He whispered. She smiled, lifting her head to nuzzle against his chin.

"I love you too." She replied, breathing deeply. He smelt of soap and aftershave, and behind that was _him_. His face was smooth after a shave, his skin warm against her cheek. His head bent and his lips found hers and she surrendered willingly to his questing tongue and wandering hands, head falling back as he kissed her throat so her long hair tickled her bare back.

Then he poked her, making her shriek and giggle, ending what had been a very promising moment.

"As much as I'm enjoying this," Draco said, looking down at the woman he had so recently began calling his lover without feeling strange about it, "We don't really have time."

She snorted and he glared.

She was beautiful, he'd thought so since third year. That was, in all fairness, some time after he'd first become friends with Harry, before Sorting, and after he and Harry and Ron had made friends with her, after the troll debacle. The three boys had been careless with what they said, making her cry. And then the troll came, and they'd gone off to save her without even thinking about the consequences. She'd lied to McGonagall to save their skins and since then they'd been friends.

They all grew up, and when third year rolled around, Draco suddenly realised that Hermione was growing up to be quite beautiful. His crush grew, something Harry and Ron noticed instantly, and was the source of endless teasing, though they swore on their wands that they wouldn't tell Hermione. She carried on oblivious.

Fourth year was all about Triwizard, and when Harry and Draco and Ron all quarreled about Harry putting his name in the Cup, even though he swore he didn't, Hermione stood by Harry, and Draco could see that it hurt her to have to take sides, and when she started seeing Krum, it made Draco feel like an idiot. If he hadn't fought with Harry about that stupid cup, and let's face it, there was no way Harry could have put his name in, he could have been at Hermione's side to ensure Krum stayed far _far_ away. But he wasn't and when she turned up at the ball, looking more stunning than he'd ever seen her, he kicked himself.

Repeatedly.

Then there was Cormac McLaggen in sixth year, and it was only Harry's fast talking and Ron's brute force that kept Draco from killing him. And when Hermione demanded to know what the hell was going on with him, Draco froze. He didn't know whether to tell her, and suffer her laughing yet sympathetic refusal or to just ask what she was talking about. His indecision made her glare, and huff before storming off, and earned a slightly sarcastic 'nice one' from Ron later on.

His father had warned him about Weasleys. There were times when Draco wished he'd listened.

In fifth year Harry and Ron and to a certain extent Hermione were all involved in something slightly secret which none of them could say, though Hermione looked apologetic, and then Professor Umbridge came and caused havoc, and they were busy with the DA. Their secret hurt though, and Draco knew it was because of his father. But he would never betray them, he thought he'd proven that again and again. Ultimately, Harry and Hermione had come and cornered him in the library, explaining in hushed tones about the Order of the Pheonix, and then he'd understood. That was the first time Draco had started worrying about the war ahead, and Hermione's part in it. All their parts in it, actually, but hers the most. But he still couldn't explain to her.

It was only when he'd rescued Hermione from Cormac at one of Slughorn's parties and they ended up necking in a supply room cupboard that he finally managed to express, somewhat out of order, that he liked her a lot and he wanted her to date him. Of course, the words were backwards and run into one so he had to repeat himself about three times before she actually understood him, and then there was a moment when she went very still and her eyes widened and he expected the sympathetic rejection.

And then she smiled, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.

A very good end to a rubbish party.

They started dating and as with all couples, there were awkward moments, moments where they came to within a word of breaking up and moments where life was blissful and there was no one else in the world.

Then the summer before sixth and seventh year.

They'd agreed to take it as it came, one step at a time, trying to keep expectations low because both knew they'd be heartbroken if the other cheated/found someone else/etc so the lower the expectations the easier to fill them. It was lucky, because Draco's father spent the summer indoctrinating his son with the Deatheater propaganda and philosophy and so Draco had very little time to write to any of his friends. And that letter, the same one sent to them all, was very simple.

_Don't write, dad's gone psycho. Talk in September. Draco._

It was all he could manage before his dad came in for another 'talk', so there was no time to write a special one for Hermione. When he saw her in September she gave him the cold shoulder, which he understood immediately. And he spent the next week trying to get her to listen to him, if she wouldn't talk.

It took them a further week to be back on speaking terms, a week after that for her to kiss him and a week after that she appeared in his bedroom one night, wrapped in Harry's invisibility cloak and quite nervous. They'd both been virgins that night but they'd managed well enough, and they started sleeping together as they rebuilt a relationship weakened by months away from each other, no contact and suspicious hearts.

It was now just after Christmas, two weeks into the spring term. They were Head Students, with the Head Suite, which allowed them a semblance of privacy. Hermione had admitted that the invisibility cloak had been in case she'd lost her nerve that first time, which made Draco laugh. Hermione _never_ lost her nerve, no matter what it was. Going back in time to save that ruddy Hippogriff which had maimed him in third year, sneaking around for the DA, or even in first year, fighting the challenges for the Philosopher's Stone. She never, ever lost her nerve, even when she was terrified or horrified or bone-achingly sad.

It was one of the things he loved most about her: her strength and determination to do what was right, no matter what.

That and she was quite adventurous in bed. And when she laughed, he knew everything would be fine, no matter how insane his father got or how much homework Snape gave them.

He'd told her he loved her under the mistletoe at Christmas. And she'd laughed that laugh, the one that told him she wasn't laughing _at_ him, she was just genuinely happy, and told him she loved him too.

And life had been blissful since.

But his birthday was coming up, 7th February, and he knew things were going to get messy.

&

Draco had finally left her to wander into the shower with a measly twenty minutes to get ready for class, including washing her hair, and so Hermione got to it.

Standing under the hot spray, she couldn't help but wish he was here too. That had been last night's activity: get Draco clean after a particularly muddy Quidditch practice. Of course, it had taken two people, two hours and a good deal of giggling and kissing.

Hermione smiled at the memory, rinsing shampoo out of her hair.

She'd liked him from the start. Even at eleven she could tell he would be handsome when he grew up, either that or he'd go the other way and look like a rat. But handsome had won out, and when she'd first seen Lucius she'd understood Draco's good looks. Still, he hadn't seemed interested in her, and so she spent years trying to hide the fact that she had the hugest crush ever on him. Ginny had repeatedly told her to go for it, but Hermione had hung back. She knew Draco could be particularly sharp, and that his talent for condescension was unsurpassed by almost everyone in the school, besides, of course, Snape, and she hadn't been prepared to face that kind of rejection. Better not to know.

She'd hoped he'd liked her in fourth year, when he got particularly surly and insistently expressed his dislike of Viktor, and Hermione almost flaunted the Romanian in Draco's face, hoping for a reaction. But Draco sulked and in the end she rolled her eyes and got on with it. 'It', however, ended quite sharply when Viktor started hinting heavily about sex, and Hermione got out of there quickly. It wasn't that she was waiting for marriage or anything, she just wanted to be ready. And she wasn't ready. And certainly not with Viktor.

Fifth year had been a nightmare, with Umbridge and the Order and everything else. Harry and Ron and she had discussed telling Draco about the Order extensively but couldn't come to a conclusion. Hermione swore they could trust him, almost with blind faith. Ron didn't want to tell them, because of Lucius. Harry was caught in between; trusting in Draco but wary of Lucius and what he knew Lucius was capable of. The hurt in Draco's eyes almost made Hermione tell him on the spot, but she resisted. Eventually, against Ron's better judgement, they told him.

It was Sixth year, when Hermione had pretty much given up on Draco and every other boy in the school, when McLaggen approached her. He told her she was beautiful, bought her gifts, talked intelligently with her. And then he, too, tried to get her in bed. Draco had rescued her from him at one of Slughorn's parties that he had crashed, grabbing her hand and tugging her through the crowd and out the door. Then Filch had come, and she'd dragged him into the closest broom closet, and almost before she'd shut the door behind them Draco's lips had crashed down on hers, his hands tugging her hips to him and her arms twisting around his neck. And then he'd finally admitted he liked her a lot.

Finally. At last. Hallelujah. Hermione had agreed to date him and off they went.

Then summer. Hermione knew Lucius was a megalomaniac tyrant, Voldemort's right hand, but surely Draco could have managed a quick 'sorry I can't talk, I miss you' along with the perfunctory note they'd all gotten? Either way she spent the summer alternately panicking that he'd died or gone through some painful Dark ritual and angrily condemning him to it. Harry and Ron tried to console her, tried to paint pictures of Draco in the slavish grips of his insane father, unable to do anything and lucky he'd managed even the one note, but it had done little to convince her. And when September came, and he tried to talk to her, she brushed him off, unwilling to hear and let go of her anger at what felt like abandonment.

It took a week for her to stop and listen to him, to the story so similar to what Harry and Ron had described. She didn't want to listen, wanted to still be angry, but she missed him, and his voice reminded her of evenings spent with him and occasionally the others, sat on the carpet in front of the fire of the Room of Requirement. So she listened, and felt her anger draining. But she held on.

Another week before she broke and spoke to him. It was more of a scream, really, as he tumbled from his broom during a mock game with Harry and Ron. He still swore it was nothing, but Hermione only remembered how her heart stopped and she couldn't breathe as she watched him fall, before she was up and running, collapsing by his side onto her knees, tears streaming down her face as she touching his face and hands, checking for a pulse and that he was breathing before his eyes opened and he looked up at her.

"So you're talking to me now, then?" He had asked, and she had cried harder and hugged him tightly, and he had hugged her back and Ron and Harry had headed discreetly back to the castle while the two sat on the Quidditch pitch.

A week after that she had kissed him, and by this point she knew he was getting fed up, but she was still coming to terms with a realization of a different kind. She wasn't mad anymore, hadn't really been angry since she'd heard his account of his summer. She was in love. And it scared the hell out of her. And so she kept her distance, trying to analyse and understand the feeling that made her heart beat faster every time he walked into the room and made her want to touch him whenever she saw him. Eventually she'd caved, dragging him off the path on the way back from Herbology, backing him against a tree and kissing him as deeply as she knew how.

And from that, she knew something else. She was ready.

So a week after that, wrapped in Harry's invisibility cloak as security, she slipped through the bathroom that adjoined their rooms in the Head Suite and with a deep breath, she steadied her nerves, dropped the cloak, and climbed into bed with him, kissing him gently awake with soft lips and roaming hands. He'd gotten the hint rather quickly.

Since then her nights were filled with him and her days were spent cramming her head with information for her NEWTs, six months away and closing. He laughed at her, but she didn't care. And he was used to her by now anyway, they all were. If she hadn't had premature panicky moments they would have been more worried.

Christmas came, bringing with it the feast and party, and it was under the mistletoe there that Draco had said three words that made her possibly the happiest she had ever been. And for about three days, she had floated in the bliss of the knowledge that he loved her. And that she could say it back with the assurance that it was reciprocated. But as soon as it began to fade, she noticed something that he had been trying to hide from her, a darkness in his eyes, a shadow of fear and worry and impending doom. But when she asked, he shook his head, said it was nothing, and distracted her with whatever was closest. But she let the subject drop willingly, watching him instead. His birthday was approaching, he would be eighteen. And his father was a Deatheater. She wasn't stupid, nor was she a victim of denial. As the date grew closer he became more affectionate, telling her he loved her often, but there was an edge to his hugs, a desperation to his kisses, that told her something she didn't want to face.

There would be big trouble. Very big. Maybe so big that they couldn't overcome it.

And there was nothing she could do.

&


	2. The Present

Hey folks. Thanks for the reviews for chapter 1, reviews are always welcome (please!). I really enjoy hearing/reading what you think on the stories, whether it's negative or not so feedback is definitely welcome.

Here's the second bit, hope you like it.

Istalindar

&

Hermione lay beside him, watching him sleep. He turned eighteen five hours ago, and she'd not slept very much; half hour snatches every half hour, mostly. And that was against her will. She didn't want to take her eyes off him for a second, didn't want to let him go. Would not let him go.

"Hermione, you need to sleep, love." Draco grumbled sleepily, throwing an arm over her waist and pulling her to him. She let herself be pulled, burying her face in his bare chest, the sprinkling of hair tickling her face, and breathed deeply, the steady thump of his heartbeat in her ear. Tears welled, and she swallowed them back. But one escaped, running over her cheek to drop onto his skin, and he shifted.

"Don't cry." He whispered. "Please don't cry."

"I'm not." She replied, equally quietly. She knew he smiled, and he pulled her closer.

"I love you." He whispered. "I always loved you. From the second you asked me on the train where Neville's stupid toad was, I knew I loved you. Nothing you could ever do could change that, and I wouldn't want you to."

"We'll get through this." Hermione whispered back. "I promise. I won't let you go, not ever." He kissed her hair.

"I'm glad." He replied. "Because I have no intention of letting you go either." She smiled. "Sleep, sweetheart. I promise I'll be here when you wake up."

With that in mind, Hermione let herself sleep.

As he promised, when she woke, he was there. But the moment he saw she was awake, he leapt from bed, saying something about needing a piss. Hermione laughed, shouting 'Happy birthday' after him.

Her worries of last night seemed very far away.

They dressed and got ready for school, and it was only after lunch that Hermione's nagging worry returned. Draco convinced her to skip last class and they spent it making love on the rug in front of the fire in the Room of Requirement, and there was a terrifying finality to it. Draco didn't say anything though, and while the shadow in his eyes was darker than ever, his hands were gentle and his touch loving. Hermione surrendered to it, letting thoughts fade from her mind.

But then he wasn't at dinner. And she knew sex always made him hungry. Harry and Ron realised her worried looks, and when they nudged her questioningly she bit her lip and told them the two facts that might have sealed Draco's fate.

"It's his birthday today. He turns eighteen." Harry didn't get it; he hadn't grown up on the stories. Ron did, and all the colour faded from his face.

"'Mione, I'm so sorry." He said, taking her hand. She smiled bravely.

"He could just be asleep." She said. "Or in the library, you know Snape gave us loads of homework." By this point, Harry had cottoned on too, and he tried to support her unlikely theories.

"Yeah, that essay is a bitch." He agreed. "And Draco's almost as bad as you for writing extra." He said with smile. "Check the library after dinner, I bet he's there."

The façade held for about thirty seconds more before it crumbled and she burst into tears.

"Oh god." Hermione breathed deeply, trying not to hyperventilate. Harry and Ron quickly rose and escorted her from the Hall, ignoring the funny looks they were getting. They sat her down on the bench in the corridor by the doors, Ron sat beside her with one hand rubbing her back and the other in hers, and Harry knelt in front of her.

"He'll be fine, Hermione, you know he will. Remember in the DA how good he was? We both know he should have been teaching those, he'll be fine. And that's providing he actually comes up against any trouble. He's got a talent for getting out of trouble, 'Mione, we all know that. And-" She barely heard him, tears coursing down her face and sobs echoing in her ears. _Oh god oh god oh god_.

"Are you all right, Miss Granger?" The three looked up and saw McGonagall standing over them, a concerned expression on her usually stern face.

"Fine, Professor." Hermione managed. Dumbledore appeared beside the Deputy Head.

"Miss Granger. May I have a word?" He seemed not to notice her blotchy face. She nodded, rising. Harry and Ron flanked her. "Just Miss Granger, for now." Dumbledore said gently. Hermione smiled reassuringly at Harry and Ron and followed Dumbledore up to his office.

"Sherbet lemon?" He asked once they were both seated. Hermione shook her head, and Dumbledore poured her a cup of tea. "Have that instead. I understand, Miss Granger, that today is Mr. Malfoy's eighteenth birthday, and that he was not at dinner." At this, Hermione nearly choked on her tea, and she set the teacup back on its saucer with shaking hands, setting both on the desk safely out of the way.

"Sir." She managed.

"I don't know what will happen, Miss Granger." Dumbledore said kindly. "I can't give you reassurances I don't have and I won't insult you with empty platitudes. I just wanted you to know you have my complete support, no matter what. You have been an overwhelming source of good for Mr. Malfoy, and between your friendship and that of Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, you've done what I thought was nigh impossible: helping a Malfoy see past the trappings of their Slytherin qualities. Whatever happens, I just wanted to tell you."

"Thank you, professor." Hermione smiled weakly. All she wanted to do was go back to their rooms and wait for Draco to come home.

"You may go, Miss Granger." Dumbledore said, eyes sympathetic and edged with the same shadow of foreboding that she had seen in Draco's for over a week.

He didn't think Draco would come back. If he even could.

"What did he say?" Ron and Harry were waiting for her by the gargoyles, and she shook her head.

"Nothing much. Just that he was supportive."

"But not going to do anything."

"There's nothing to do, Ron." Hermione shook her head. "I'm going back to my rooms. I want to wait."

"We're coming with." Harry said immediately, and the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes let Hermione know that arguing would achieve nothing.

&

The night was long, and Hermione found herself waiting out most of it alone, Harry and Ron drifting off asleep only to wake and apologise profusely. They wouldn't leave her though, and she appreciated the sign of support, even if they did snore.

Dawn came late, and Hermione unfolded herself and walked stiffly around the room. There had been no sign of him at all, and Hermione walked into his room, trailing a hand over the sheets where barely twenty four hours ago they had slept. She stood in the middle of the room and felt lost.

A tapping at the window drew her out of her daze and she saw Igor, Draco's owl, tapping insistently. There was a package, and Hermione untied it quickly so the owl could move more freely. He clacked his beak at her gratefully, and settled on his perch. Hermione looked at the package.

A box, square and heavy. It had her name across the top in his familiar handwriting, so with a glance back to check Harry and Ron were asleep she opened it, pulling the paper back and opening the flaps of the box. And then she froze, breath catching and heart pounding so loudly in her ears she couldn't hear herself screaming. Ron and Harry came running, and with barely a glance at the box, Harry was pulling her away, holding her arms across her chest so she couldn't fight him off. Ron shut the box and put it on the floor out of sight.

She was still screaming. Igor got fed up and flew out the open window. Harry and Ron were trying to talk to her but all she could hear was her pounding heart and all she could see was Draco's wide grey eyes, the shadow at the forefront now, fear and resignation.

"Miss Granger!" Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore burst into the room, wands drawn and dressing gowns pulled hastily over nightclothes, but Hermione barely saw.

"What the hell is going on here?" Snape demanded. Ron pointed to the box and Snape pushed past him, opening the flaps and flinching before quickly closing it. Hermione's screams were subsiding into hoarse sobs, her knees giving up so she and Harry sank to the floor. She was rocking in his arms eyes clenched shut as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

And then, gradually, even her sobs subsided so she stared, eyes blank, straight ahead, tears gone and mind exhausted.

"Come on." Snape said, scooping her up out of Harry's arms and leading the way out of the Head Suite and to the infirmary. Shocked, both at the box and at Snape's behaviour, the boys followed, hovering anxiously while McGonagall whispered the situation in Pomfrey's ear and then the nurse administered a sedative. They all watched as Hermione's body succumbed to the drug, and then she was asleep, eyelids closing over eyes torn with loss.

"God." Ron sank into one of the chairs, head in his hands. Harry was sat on a bed in a similar position, the loss of one of their closest friends finally hitting home. Hermione's grief had consumed them all, wrapping them in her pain so they didn't feel their own. But now she was asleep, there was nothing to shield them.

"He refused." Harry said, looking up finally at the watchful teachers. "He was meant to become a Deatheater and he refused. So they killed him. And decapitated him so we could see it was our fault."

"It's not your fault." Snape said bitterly. "He's dead because the Dark Lord will not be refused and that is what Draco did."

"Don't you dare say its his fault!" Ron lashed out angrily, grief overcoming his inherent fear of the Potions Master. "Don't you dare!"

"There's no way to tell." Harry shook his head. "If we hadn't been his friends, would it have been different? Would he have been the Deatheater his father wanted?"

"There is no way to tell." Dumbledore said gravely. "And there is no use dwelling on 'what ifs'. You've lost a dear friend to a war that will come to consume everything, so grieve for him, but don't blame yourself."

"Try telling that to her," Ron said. "And chances are she'll take an eye out." They all looked at the sleeping girl. "This is going to destroy her."

"Miss Granger is a strong girl." McGonagall said, with more faith than she felt.

"Hermione loved him more than anything." Harry shook his head. "Strong as she is…I don't know if she can cope with this."

"Either way." Dumbledore broke in. "Try and get some sleep, the two of you may stay here tonight with Miss Granger. We'll talk about this in the morning." He turned and left, the other teachers at his heels. Pomfrey stayed only long enough to make sure the boys were comfortable, and then she, too, left.

The infirmary was quiet, still. And Harry and Ron settled themselves in for a long vigil. For themselves, for Hermione, and for a fallen friend.

&


	3. A Step Forward

Here you go folks, the next chapter. Thanks to everyone who added to me to their favourites and author alert, I'm glad you guys like it. Oh, and by the way, just for anyone who hasn't guessed (or hasn't read book 7 yet), while this fic works with the books up to 6, it doesnt work with 7.

Enjoy.

&

When they woke the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the window and Hermione was gone. Both boys leapt out of bed and were at the door when Madame Pomfrey entered.

"Not a chance, you two." She said sternly.

"Hermione's gone!" They protested. Pomfrey glanced at her bed and sighed.

"Then you better find her, hadn't you? But bring her back here afterwards. I don't want her wandering about, the state she's in." Both boys nodded, though they knew from experience that the hysterical stage of Hermione's grief had probably finished. There was a pattern: first there was the very noisy, disturbing beginning, which faded into stony silence, which developed in turn to headstrong determination as she made a plan to amend whatever it was that had upset her. By this point she was probably in the middle of silence and determination, but the danger period was over.

"Yes Madame Pomfrey." They chorused, then dashed past her and out.

"Where do you think?" Ron asked as they stopped around the corner, out of sight, to plan.

"Depends. What can be done?" Harry asked.

"He's dead, Harry. It's not like we can turn back time." Ron looked at Harry and found the other boy staring at him with wide green eyes. "What?"

"The Timeturner!" Harry breathed. "Library. I bet that's what she's planning."

"To stop him going to see Voldemort? If he does that, Voldemort will still want to kill him. All she'll have bought him is time."

"Maybe that's all she wants." Harry shrugged. "But I bet that's where she'll be, reminding herself about Timeturners."

"Time is a messy business." Ron muttered darkly, but he followed his friend to the library anyway, and sure enough, there she was, behind a stack of books, most of them marked with an image of a clock or a timepiece or a timer.

"Hermione." Harry slid into the seat beside her and she barely looked up. "We want to help."

"I'm fine."

"He was our friend too, 'Mione. Let us do _something_." Ron added. Hermione looked up and looked from one to the other. Both boys wore earnest expressions and she sighed.

"I have a plan." She began. "Which is risky, but I think I can pull it off."

"The Timeturner." Harry said promptly. "And it's plural. _We_ can pull it off."

"How far back are you planning on going?" Ron asked. Hermione's surprised expression faded and she smiled, though the expression was marked with a kind of resigned sadness that Harry wanted to go away.

"I should have known you'd guess." She said wryly. "As for how far…back to the beginning. The very beginning."

"First year?" Harry asked, surprised.

"First year." Hermione confirmed. "The plan is to go back to the train ride where you all met. I'll tell you two that Draco is bad news, that everything you heard about him was right. And that in the future, he gets mixed up in some very bad things and gets people killed. You two will hate him on principle, which means when I make friends with you later on, I'll hate him too. He and I won't get together, and he won't refuse the Dark Mark."

"And he won't die." Harry finished.

"Exactly." Hermione nodded decisively.

"But then you'll never get together." Ron said. "You'll miss out on everything you two had. And we'll miss out on him as well."

"You won't know what you're missing." Hermione shook her head. "Because it won't have happened yet."

"But what about afterwards?" Harry asked. "Once we've made sure that we never make friends with Draco, we'll be stuck there."

"That is the major drawback, yes." Hermione nodded. "That's why I want to go alone. You can't go because if either of your younger selves see you, there'll be chaos. It's the first rule of time travel. I have to go alone."

"No chance." Ron and Harry said immediately. Harry continued. "We'll go as well, just to stand watch."

"What from?" Hermione asked with a slightly bitter laugh. "Voldemort won't be back. And I'll wear uniform, so everyone will simply think I'm an older student. I'll be perfectly safe, and no offense, but you two would simply complicate things."

"So you'll never come back, afterwards?" Ron asked. Hermione smiled and shook her head.

"Once I change the past, Ron, it'll change the future. This future, here and now with Draco dead and us three discussing this, will cease to exist. There will be nothing to come back to, and you two will never miss me."

"Bollocks." Harry said flatly, and she sighed.

"You know how it works, Harry. Third year, once we saved Buckbeak in the past, it changed the future and the future in which he was executed ceased to exist. This is how it works."

"Say we do this." Ron said, moving the conversation along. There would be time enough to argue who was going later. "Where are we going to get a Timeturner from?"

"My old one is still in McGonagall's office." Hermione said, "So all we need is her password then I can sneak in while you two watch, and we can be gone before she even realises what's happening."

"You're determined, aren't you?" Harry asked. When Hermione decided to break rules, she certainly picked the biggest and baddest ones.

"It's a perfect scenario. Draco lives, we don't know what we're missing. Everyone's alive and happy."

"And we're stranded back in 1997." Ron said dryly. "If that's your idea of a perfect scenario then your standards have slipped."

"It's as perfect as it's going to get." Hermione snapped. "And I'm going alone!"

"One step at a time." Harry said calmly, sharing a glance with Ron. There was no way in hell she was doing this alone. "Look, lunch is in twenty minutes. Let's sort this plan until then, and after we can start. Alright? But this is something I don't want to do on an empty stomach." At that, Hermione smiled, and the three of them started finalizing plans. It felt strange without Draco, but it was something they were going to have to get used to.

&

After lunch the three of them made their way to McGonagall's office. They'd been given the day off, which was kind of a moot point seeing as they'd already skived morning classes, but at least it meant that Snape wouldn't spend the afternoon torturing and penalizing them.

"We have to stay with her." Harry muttered to Ron as they followed her down the hall. "Or she'll spin the turner before we have a chance to duck under the chain. She wants to go this alone."

"Tell me about it." Ron muttered back, then shut up quickly as Hermione dragged them into a side corridor behind a statue of Frederick the Forgetful. A moment later, McGonagall and Dumbledore walked past.

"I've taken the time turner and put it in my office." Dumbledore was saying. "I thought I'd have another look at it."

"Of course. It's such a shame about young Draco Malfoy. Though I must say he was incredibly brave to refuse He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named like that."

"The influence of the people we surround ourselves with is more powerful than we imagine, Minerva. Changing those people changes who we are. Such a small thing changes so much." Harry glanced at Hermione and saw her rolling her eyes and gesturing for her hand for Dumbledore and McGonagall to move on. When he frowned in question she sighed.

"He knows." She mouthed silently. Harry frowned.

"Knows what?" He mouthed back. She rolled her eyes again and looked away, waiting for the two teachers to disappear around the corner. When their voices had faded, Hermione stepped out from behind the statue and led them in a slightly different direction to Dumbledore's office. They reached it without seeing anyone, and Hermione quickly let them in, having been told the password when she was shown her rooms as Head Girl. The memory brought back another wave of tears and Hermione swallowed them back resolutely. Practice makes perfect.

"Hurry up." She whispered impatiently at the spiral staircase which brought them slowly to Dumbledore's door, and she reached out and gingerly pushed at it, wary of any wards, but it opened silently and easily. And there, right in front of them, was the timeturner, sat in the middle of the desk, glinting in the late winter sunlight from the window behind it.

"Stand guard." Harry told Ron, who nodded. Harry and Hermione stepped into the room, the door shutting behind them. Harry crept past her, but she grabbed his arm.

"Don't bother." She said, her voice at normal volume. "He knows we're here for it."

"Indeed, Miss Granger." Dumbledore stepped through from the small antechamber behind the desk. "I've been expecting you."

"What-" Harry began.

"He told McGonagall he had the timeturner so we could hear." Hermione said impatiently. "Because he knew I already knew the password to his office. He told me whatever I decided to do, he would support."

"Quite right, Miss Granger." Dumbledore nodded. "May I ask exactly what you plan?"

"To go back and stop us ever being friends with him." Harry answered. "So he and Hermione never get together, so he doesn't refuse Voldemort and die."

"You'd sacrifice everything you four had for this?" Dumbledore asked, though he was unsurprised.

"We won't know what we're missing." Harry said softly, echoing Hermione's early words. "So we won't be able to miss it. And he'll be alive." He added, somewhat wryly. "Perfect scenario."

"Or close to." Dumbledore agreed. "Here. Take this." He handed a folded piece of parchment to them. "Give it to me then. I'll make arrangements for you two." Hermione smiled her thanks and accepted the paper. "Now. I believe Snape wishes to talk to me. Off you go." Harry glanced at Hermione, and saw she was trying to subtly loop the chain around her neck, and he grabbed it and ducked under it too.

"Oh no you don't." He muttered, but she was already spinning the timeturner and Harry barely had a chance for an apologetic thought for Ron before they were spinning out of time, faster and faster so the room was a blur, and suddenly it stopped. Dumbledore was sat behind his desk, looking much the same but younger, and somewhat bemused at the two students who had suddenly appeared in his office.

"Yes?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "Can I help you two?"

"Here." Hermione handed him the parchment. He accepted it and unfolded it, scanning its contents quickly before looking up.

"Well, this is interesting." He said eventually. "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger." They smiled in relief. "I imagine you would like to be on the train when it leaves to go pick up the students from Kings Cross."

"Yes Professor." Hermione nodded.

"Very well then, and good luck. Come see me again as soon as you arrive, and we shall make further arrangements." They nodded. "Well, you should hurry down to the station; the train will be leaving any minute."

"Thanks!" Hermione cried out, already dashing for the door. The two of them pelted through the castle, past a very shocked Snape and a rather confused McGonagall, jumping onto the train barely a second before it pulled away. They collapsed on the seats in the nearest compartment, panting.

"I feel bad for Ron." Harry said when he thought he could speak again, his heart rate returning to normal. "We left him behind."

"He'll be pissed off at us for all of ten hours." Hermione said, still sounding a little breathless. "And knowing him, he'll probably find another turner and follow us here."

"Are you sure about this?" Harry asked. Hermione shrugged.

"Ron will be fine."

"I wasn't talking about Ron."

"Oh." Hermione sighed. "Too late now, isn't it?"

"You're wiping it all away, how you feel, how he feels-"

"Felt."

"What you had. Gone. Never existed."

"He'll be alive." Hermione said sadly. "And it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

"Ok then." Harry nodded. "Then let's do it."

&

Please Review!


	4. The Past is the Future

Hey folks. Sorry this took so long, the story itself is nearly finished but I've been away etc etc. As soon as I go back to uni I should have a more reliable internet source so hopefully updates will be quicker. Until then, I hope you like this, and please tell me what you think. Istalindar

&

"I'm sorry, you know." Hermione asked as they pulled into Kings Cross. "I never asked you if this was what you wanted."

"He'll be alive." Harry said after a pause. "We're losing a friend, Hermione, but we've lost him either way. You're losing more…memories."

"I'll have never had them." Hermione said with a small smile. "Time's a funny thing, isn't it?" Harry smiled wryly. "What should we do now? There's a couple hours before the students arrive."

"Sleep." Harry advised, and she sighed.

"No chance." He smiled gently, holding out his hand.

"Come here, 'Mione." She went, scootching to sit beside him. He wrapped his arm around her, cradling her against his side. "Try and sleep." He whispered. "In the morning this will all be over."

"Seven years from now, you mean." Hermione argued, but she was already starting to doze.

"One step at a time." He said, and then they subsided into silence as Hermione slowly drifted off and Harry followed.

They were woken by the chatter of many young children, and they hastily sprung apart. Hermione retied her hair in its customary long plait down her back, and Harry yawned.

"You should stand guard while I talk to them." Hermione said. "They can't see you."

"I remember." Harry nodded. "What about clothes? We're going to look a bit odd, already in school robes." Hermione drew her wand and a few quick incantations later, they were both dressed in jeans, him with a t-shirt and her with a vest top and a zip up sweater. At her throat was a silver snake, set with emeralds and peridot that he recognised as Draco's. He didn't comment on it. "You know far too much." He chided. He hadn't recognised her spells at all.

"So would you if you listened in class." Hermione retorted quietly. "Look, there you are with Ron." He rose and joined her at the window, watching his younger self step through. He was struck by how short he was. "Bugger, there I am. And I'm coming this way!" She jerked quickly back from the window, and Harry watched as a much younger and nervous looking Hermione walked past. She glanced up at him, and he nodded down to her. The gesture seemed to bolster her confidence, as she straightened and raised her chin. He grinned.

Typical Hermione. Already showing the strength that would have her engaging this quest, seven years into the future.

"Have I gone?" Hermione asked, peering out the window. Harry nodded.

"Yeah. We better settle in, look like we're actually students. Or there'll be all sorts of questions."

"There will be anyway." Hermione shrugged. "We're going to have to juggle house allegiances. Gryffindors would know us, so we have to be Ravenclaws until some real Ravenclaws come along and we have to be Hufflepuff."

"And Slytherin? That's going to be fun." Harry rolled his eyes and Hermione smiled wryly.

"Draco was Slytherin." She reminded him. He smiled.

"Easy to forget though, wasn't it? Not like Zabini, the wanker. And Parkinson, draped over him as she was. Like a scarf."

"A heavy scarf." Hermione added, a little spitefully. They had always hated Zabini and Parkinson. Harry grinned.

"Here's one…oh wait, people already here." Harry and Hermione looked up and saw Fred, George and Lee standing in the doorway.

"Feel free." Hermione gestured, and the boys piled in.

"Thanks sweetheart." Lee grinned and she rolled her eyes. "What's your name?"

"Harriet." She answered, the first name that came to mind besides her own. "I'm a Ravenclaw."

"Really?" George leaned back and gave her an appraising look. The train started forward with a shudder, but they all ignored it.

"And a Seventh year." She added dryly. He shrugged and gave a cheeky grin.

"So?" She laughed.

He'd never changed.

She glanced up at Harry and tucked a curl behind her ear pointedly, and he hurriedly raised his hand to his fringe, arranging it to cover his scar.

"Who's you friend, love?" Fred leaned over. "I'm Fred."

"James." Harry answered. "Nice to meet you."

"Ravenclaw as well? Cool. Got anyone joining this year?" Harry shook his head. "My little bro is. Gonna be a nightmare." Hermione grinned. She remembered.

"Well, nice as this is, I'm going to see if I can find any of the others." Hermione said, standing. "Coming, James?"

"Yeah, we know you two are going to go make out." Lee said with a wide grin. Harry winked and with a hand on Hermione's back, guided her out the door.

"Let's go find you." Hermione said, heading down the train to where she first remembered seeing the boys, when she was on her quest for Neville's toad. Harry nodded. "And be careful with your scar. It could get confusing for the others."

"Either that or they'll think I'm a wannabe." Harry ginned and she rolled her eyes. "Here." She looked left and saw Harry and Ron, the much younger versions, talking animatedly in the compartment and eating sweets from a giant pile.

"I remember that. I didn't know what anything was so I bought some of everything. Ron was missing Agrippa."

"What?" Hermione was confused. Harry smiled, watching himself and Young Ron.

"Chocolate frogs had trading cards with wizards on them. Ron was missing Agrippa and another one. It was the first time I'd ever seen Dumbledore, on one of those cards." Hermione smiled, and touched Harry's shoulder briefly before slipping into the compartment. The two younger boys looked up.

"Hello?" Ron asked hesitantly. Hermione smiled.

"Hi Ron." She looked at Harry. "Harry."

"How did you know?" Young Harry asked. She smiled.

"I need you both to listen to me, because this is important. There's a boy called Draco Malfoy on this train, and under no circumstances are you to make friends with him."

"What?" Young Ron asked, confused. Hermione sighed.

"My name is Hermione." She said honestly. "I came from the future with a time turner. I came to warn you. In the future, Draco Malfoy gets very tangled in some very bad things, which result in people dying. People you care about. I'm telling you here and now, be wary of him. Be careful. He can be cruel and he'll do just about anything to get what he wants. Watch out for him."

"What happens?" Young Harry asked. She shook her head.

"I can't tell you, because it might change the future more than we can afford. Just…don't trust him, okay? He says one thing and means another. He's bad news." Harry and Ron nodded.

"My dad says the Malfoys are all bad news." Young Ron said thoughtfully. Hermione smiled at him, a little sadly.

"Then your father was right."

An urgent tapping broke into the conversation, and Hermione understood what it meant. Young Hermione was coming to ask about Neville's toad.

"I've got to go." Hermione said, rising. "Remember what I've said, okay? Things get bad, in the future. Don't let it happen. Don't trust Draco Malfoy." Harry nodded, looking serious.

"We won't." He said sincerely, and with another small, sad smile, Hermione slipped from the compartment, and Harry grabbed her hand and they ducked into another empty compartment barely in time. They could still hear Young Hermione though, loud, bossy and talking very fast.

"Did I really sound like that?" Hermione whispered. Harry grinned.

"Worse, because you were talking at us." He replied. "You scared the life out of me, saying you'd learnt all our books off by heart. I always wondered how you did it?" Hermione bit her lip.

"Photographic memory." She admitted. Harry stared.

"Seriously?" He demanded. She nodded, looking suddenly shy. "Seriously? You had a photographic memory all this time and let us think you were just an obsessive workaholic?"

"I was." Hermione defended. "It just helped is all. Especially once I was with Draco."

"I don't even want to know." Harry shook his head, eyes squeezed shut. She laughed.

"Listen." She said suddenly.

She could almost hear Ron's voice, and Harry finished along with him. "…Butter Mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow." Harry grinned. "I knew from the beginning that it was bollocks." He said with a smile.

"The stuff I'd tried was in Latin. Not stupid rhymes like they have on TV." Hermione commented.

"Well, the twins did give it to him." Harry said. "So what do you expect?"

"Nothing more or less than what Ron got." Hermione nodded with a smile. "Do you think you'll click? That the old Hermione who warned them about Draco is the same person as the Young Hermione?"

"Not until the troll incident, at least." Harry said thoughtfully. "Until we knew you, we thought you were bossy, loud, annoying…"

"I'm all of those things."

"Yes, you are." He grinned at her expression. "But you're also sweet, thoughtful, compassionate and you care. It makes the other qualities somewhat easier to bear."

"Pig." She glared. He grinned back at her carelessly.

"Photographic memory." She huffed and folded her arms, and he grinned. "So we sit back and wait?" He asked, moving on. "Go to Dumbledore when we get back, but then what? Seven years. We can't stay in school because we're bound to be noticed. Where else can we go?"

"This is why I wanted to come alone." Hermione whispered. Harry stared at her, not understanding, and then suddenly it clicked. She'd come here to die. She had planned to come back alone, change time, and then die.

"Well, you didn't." He said briskly, stomach still turning from the realization of what she had planned to do. "So. What do we do?"

"I don't know, we'll just have to talk to Dumbledore about it." Hermione shrugged. "He's probably been thinking about it since we gave him the letter last night."

"True." Harry settled himself in. "You know, I never realised before how bloody long this trip is." Hermione grinned as she stretched out on the seats.

"That is why sleep is our friend." She replied, pillowing her head on her arms and closing her eyes. Harry watched her fall asleep, her breath evening out and her features, drawn from stress and grief, relaxing.

He hadn't considered that she'd come here to die. He'd thought she was just being stubborn, wanting to do everything by herself. And he'd ruined her plans by coming with her, and now she couldn't end her life the way she wanted. Not that it made a difference. In six and a half years would come the day that they had originally come back to 1997, and once that moment passed, they'd cease to exist as part of a future that had been changed.

&

Harry and Hermione were heading down the train to get a better seat beside the doors so they could make a quick escape when they passed the compartment with Young Harry and Ron, and saw the silvery head of Young Draco in there with them. Harry glanced at Hermione, and saw her staring at the young version of her lover with tears in her eyes.

"Please work." She whispered. "Please let this work."

"You'll soon find out that some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

"Draco said that." Harry murmured, remembering.

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks." Young Harry replied.

"I was politer than that." Harry remembered. "Not as cold. I think it's working."

"Shh." Hermione hissed, pressing herself against the wall of the corridor so other students could get past.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter." Young Draco said. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them either. You hang around with riff-raff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid and it'll rub off on you."

"He definitely didn't say that." Harry muttered. "Or I'd have decked him."

"It looks like you're about to." Hermione replied, eyes still on the scene in front of her.

"Say that again." Young Harry said dangerously, only it didn't sound very dangerous as his voice hadn't broken yet and it rather reminded Hermione of when they'd sucked helium at a Quidditch celebration party in Sixth year. She smirked and Harry rolled his eyes.

"It's not my fault my voice hasn't broken yet." He muttered sternly, which made her giggle. "Watch it." There were a couple of students, second years that Hermione and Harry recognised as the year above, running up and down the corridors, shouting and laughing. They couldn't hear what was being said in the compartment anymore.

The pair watched as the squabble threatened to turn into a fight until Scabbers intervened and Malfoy disappeared with Crabbe and Goyle in tow. They saw Young Hermione coming and they quickly turned their backs, but not before they nearly saw her get run over by one of the Second years.. Young Hermione ignored them and the second years completely, going into the compartment with Young Harry and Ron and started lecturing them before leaving the compartment and heading back up the corridor.

"That's not how it happened for you, is it?" Hermione asked softly. "With Draco, I mean." Harry shook his head.

"No. Draco made a speech about good and bad families, and I said something along the lines of 'I wouldn't know so I'm going by character', and he sent the other two away and spent the next half an hour trying to get into my good graces. Somewhere along the line his creeping turned into socializing and the three of us were friends before we knew what had happened. And you joined us after the troll incident."

"I remember." Hermione said softly. "Then it worked."

"Looks like." Harry said, watching out the window as the castle approached. "We're here."

"Be ready to make a run for it." Hermione advised. "If we get the front carriage and say we're saving seats, we might manage to get it to ourselves." Harry nodded and the two waited until the train had stopped before throwing open the door and heading quickly for the carriages, ignoring Hagrid's calls of 'Firs' years!'.

"I remember the boat ride." Hermione said as they climbed into the second carriage: the first was reserved for prefects and Head Students. "I nearly fell in." Harry grinned.

"Be like you. You were so clumsy till third year."

"I was a very failed ballerina as a child." Hermione replied, closing the carriage door and staring out the window. "We did it, Harry." She whispered. Harry nodded, knowing instantly what she was talking about.

"Yeah, we did. Regrets?"

"He'll be alive. Or at least this way he'll have a chance."

"Now we just need to worry about ourselves." Harry nodded. He reached over and took her hand. "It's going to be okay." She looked up at him, eyes shiny with tears but with a genuine smile on her lips.

"It already is."

&

Draco sighed, regarding the box on his desk coolly, his arms folded across his chest. The Dark Mark still burned on his left arm, still rimmed with red from it's creation. His body was fighting it, but losing. The box on his desk was a gift from his father; today was his eighteenth birthday, and his inheritance was finally his. Not that it mattered that he'd been a legal adult for a year already, Malfoys just _had_ to do things differently. So here he was, February of what would have been his Seventh year if he hadn't been on the run with Snape for killing Dumbledore.

That was still a sore memory, something he preferred not to think about. How he had faltered, how he had failed his Lord and Master. His body still remembered the pain he had suffered in punishment for his inability to complete his task. Finally he stepped forward, opening the box. And then he froze, staring at the snake pendant lying on the black velvet.

At the beginning of Sixth year, he had been searching for somewhere to practice for his task. He knew of the Room of Requirement of course, but he also knew that Potter knew, and he wanted to be well away from The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Annoy-Him, his blood traitor friend and the mudblood who followed after them like a little puppy.

Draco hated puppies. But more to the point, he hated her. The Mudblood, the Know-It-All, the one who stood between him and his father's pride. Sometimes the thought of being in the same room with her made him want to be ill. Sometimes because she was a mudblood, and sometimes because she was particularly attractive and it annoyed him that he thought so. Annoyed him that she made him think so.

Anyway. Sixth year he was looking for somewhere he could practice in complete isolation, and he found what he ended up calling 'The Tower'. He'd found it one day while wandering the castle, and managed to open the door after dealing with the complicated lock system. But when he stepped inside, he found he could go no farther than the door extended into the room, which was about three feet. There was a shield around the dark, windowless room, which he couldn't see nor step beyond. And when he used his wand to light the room, he found something which shocked him.

The room was empty except for a large four poster bed. And lying on the bed, side by side, were two people. Asleep or dead, Draco couldn't tell. On the far side was a man, tall, with black hair. Draco couldn't see his features. Closest to him on the bed was a woman, dressed in long black robes. Her hair was tied back, and while one hand rested on her stomach, the other fell off the bed. From the hand hung a necklace, a fine silver chain tangled in her loose fingers and a snake pendant studded with emerald and peridot dangling freely, completely still. Her face was pale, but Draco thought he could see tear tracks on her cheeks.

He was guessing the whole room was in suspended animation, though for what purpose or for how long he couldn't even begin to guess. But something about them, her especially, drew him. She was beautiful, but with her eyes shut she was distant. She looked very sad, and there was something about the pendant in her hand, something familiar.

Well, now he knew. He'd seen the pendant at home. And in that context, he could remember. It was an heirloom, the kind a Malfoy gave to a lover they planned on spending the rest of their life with. So what it was doing hanging from the fingers of a woman locked in a tower in suspended animation he had no idea. But he wanted to find out.

Over the year, he had found himself going up to the tower more and more, opening the door and sitting there in the metre square gap, sometimes just thinking, sometimes talking to her as though she could hear him. She gave him strength; talking to her always made him felt better, and he was careful to always lock the door behind him, reasserting the lock system he had broken and even adding a few of his own to keep intruders away. This place was his, she was his. He was careful not to breathe a word, a hint, of it to anyone. And when there was the Deatheater attack at Hogwarts, he'd been afraid that her tower would be demolished, that she'd die. It was what was on his mind the whole attack, and when he faced Dumbledore, he'd been expecting the thought of her to strengthen him.

And she betrayed him.

She filled his mind, and it was as though he could hear her voice in his ear, clear as if she were standing behind him, but she wasn't saying _'take heart, be strong'_, the way he had always imagined her. Instead, she was pleading, crying _'Don't do this, Draco! You don't have to do this! Please!'_ As though it was she he faced on the tower, wand levelled at her heart. And her voice made him stammer, made him stumble. Until Snape came and killed Dumbledore for him. Draco heard her voice in his mind, a gasping, sobbing moan, and then there was nothing.

She hadn't 'said' a word since, and when he tried to imagine her voice, to conjure her words in his mind, there was nothing but silence. She had abandoned him. He'd tried to forget her.

But this…this he could never forget. And it would lock her in his mind as well.

The necklace from his father, a sign that he was worthy, that he could now choose a bride, or at least a lover. A small comfort while he was on the run, but it was a sign that Lucius trusted his judgement, which was a greater gift than any jewelled pendant.

But it was her jewelled pendant, and holding it in his hand made Draco feel wrong, as though he had stolen it from her. He set it back in the box but left it open, so the green gems still caught the light and winked it back at him.

He sighed. These thoughts got him nowhere and made him melancholy.

He took off his shirt, getting ready for bed, and was about to shuck off his trousers when a soft cough caught his attention. He whirled, expecting Snape, and instead found himself facing a tall, lanky man with red hair and freckles. Looked like a Blood-traitor Weasely, but not one he knew.

"Please don't get undressed any further. It's not something I want to see." The man said.

"Who the hell are you?" Draco demanded, wand drawn. He noticed the man's wand was also drawn, but held loosely at his side, as though he didn't fear the eighteen-year-old in front of him.

"Doesn't matter." The man replied. His blue gaze flicked to Draco's left arm. "I see you've become a Deatheater." He glanced at his watch. "And the moment's passed, and you're still alive. So they succeeded."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Draco asked angrily, grabbing a shirt and hastily pulling it on, concealing the Dark Mark on his arm. He was disinclined to be polite.

"In an alternate future, you died several hours ago. Two people returned to the past to change that future so you could live. They sacrificed a great deal in the hope that you would live. I merely came to ensure they succeeded."

"Alternate future? What the hell are you talking about?" Draco was confused and resorted to anger to cover it. A slight smile on the stranger's face showed Draco's failure. Draco scowled.

"In my reality, a reality which will cease to exist entirely in about four minutes, you were not the man you are now. You were in love with a woman, and had true friends. Because of your love for her, and hers for you, you died. She and one of your friends returned to the past to ensure you never fell in love with her, and thus avoided your fate. They've been trapped here."

"The woman in the Tower." Draco breathed. The man frowned, his eyes skimming the room and landed on the snake pendant.

"That necklace was a gift to her, on her birthday." He commented, nodding towards the jewellery. "I see you've not given it to anyone."

"I only received it today." Draco retorted. "From my father. It was my birthday."

"I know." The man nodded. "You died on your birthday, in my reality. It's what started this."

"The woman in the tower, she's the one I loved…in the other reality?" Draco asked, trying to get his head around it. "And she came back to save me, and then got trapped here? What about the man?"

"He came with her, to protect her and keep her company." The man answered. "She chose a lonely fate for herself in order to protect you. We all did."

"Why? Why would you do something like that for me?" Draco asked, confused.

"Because you were our friend, and because of that, you died. And because we were your friends, and when we saw a way for you to live, we took it." Draco nodded absently, though his mind was racing. The woman in the tower…she really had been his. And he hers.

"How did I die?" He asked. The man shrugged.

"I imagine it was Avada Kedavra. Your head was sent to her as a sign. So she knew whose fault your death was. It was unnecessary, though it did upset her sufficiently that she considered this somewhat insane plan. Which worked, as always."

"I refused to be a Deatheater, didn't I?" Draco breathed, and the man looked at him shrewdly before nodding. "I loved her so I said no and they killed me."

"That's what we think happened. So we came back to make sure you never were our friend, so you and her never fell in love." He smiled, then glanced at his watch. "Time's up. I'm glad you're still alive. Maybe you still have a chance of being what you were meant to be." He gestured vaguely at Draco's arm. "That…it's a tattoo. It isn't your heart, nor is it your mind. Don't forget." He turned and began to walk away down the corridor.

"Wait!" Draco ran after him, grabbing his sleeve to make him stop and turn. "What was her name? Tell me her name!"

"I promise you already know it." The man said solemnly. "And when you see her you'll know. Don't forget, you saw her when she was in her twenties, she's still young now."

"You mean she's alive? Here and now?"

"Of course she is." The man said with a soft laugh. "Why shouldn't she be? You are."

And he was suddenly gone, Draco's hand empty of shirt and sleeve.

And so started Draco Malfoy's obsession.

&


	5. The Tower

Hey people! Back again because we FINALLY have internet (yay!). It's a long chapter for all those lovely people who reviewed and as bribery for all those who didn't (you know who you are). It's nearly finished…I'm trying to come up with a satisfactory ending but am not having much luck at the moment. Anyway. Hope you like. Enjoy, Istalindar

&

Six years on and the war still raged. The Muggle World had retreated into a war-locked state: they weren't at war but it felt as thought they were. It was dangerous to go out at night, and even during the day, a perfectly normal street could suddenly erupt in flashes of coloured light, screaming and explosions. The Wizarding government struggled to keep the war under wraps but it was slipping through their fingers, slowly but inevitably.

Draco Malfoy, Voldemort's Right Hand, had made a name for himself. His father was dead, no one knew about Narcissa. He was known as a fearsome Deatheater, cold, emotionless, distant. He couldn't be caught, half the time he wasn't even seen. He was second only to Voldemort on the Ministry's most wanted list.

Sometimes, privately, Hermione considered the concept that the cold, sneering face that glared from Wanted posters was not the man they all sought. Sometimes she wondered if there was someone he loved, hidden far away from the war. Or she wondered if behind the indifferent mask there was grief, for a friend who been sacrificed to the struggle between good and evil.

She never spoke these thoughts out loud. Harry and Ron had always hated him from the very beginning, though try as she might she couldn't work out why. The one time she had asked, they had told her some confusing half-truth about being told that Malfoy was trouble with a capital T and that he would bring nothing but destruction and death to them. Hermione was sceptical. How on earth could they know that at eleven?

But it was just another thing on the list of things she couldn't say. Because no one would listen, because they were so locked up in the black and white of good and evil they'd forgotten that bad men loved and good men hated.

In truth, it comforted her to think that there was love in Malfoy's heart for someone. Even if it was just a son's love for his mother. Because the idea that Malfoy was without love, utterly and completely, was both terrifying and horrific. A man without love had nothing to live for, and men without a purpose were those that were most dangerous.

"Hermione! You ready?" Ron appeared at her side and she nodded, reasserting her grip on her wand. They were about to go on another street raid, where they were bound to meet and fight Deatheaters, maybe even the infamous Draco Malfoy.

Hermione hoped not. Draco scared her, there was something in his grey eyes that she couldn't identify, and his skill as a murderer was considerable. She hadn't seen him in over a year though; there were rumours he'd gone underground. No one knew why.

"Hermione!" Ron snapped, a little annoyed. "Stay with us, or stay here."

"I'm with you." Hermione retorted, and resolutely pushed thoughts of the enemy to the back of her mind, focusing on the task at hand. They thought they'd found a Deatheater safehouse, and had every intention of massacring each and every one, unless they found one, like Malfoy, who might have information.

At school, Hermione had never imagined herself a murderer. But no matter what she fought for, that's what she was.

"Good luck people."

That was Harry, their fearless leader and her best friend alongside Ron. He winked at her, and then they began the apparation pattern, three at a time to strategic positions around the house. She was in the penultimate three, and appeared silently, the pop of apparation masked by a silencing spell. She could see the others, all placed carefully. Harry had developed into a brilliant tactician, bested only by Cho Chang, who had one of the shrewdest minds for attack tactics that Hermione had ever seen. The Ravenclaw had lost a lot to this war, lover and baby daughter, and had turned her impressive mind to destroying the people that destroyed her life. Her single-mindedness made her brilliant. Her loss had made her dead at heart.

Then there was the sign, the soft owl call, and the battle began. Hermione wasn't a part of the first attack party. She led the groups positioned to apprehend the escape of the Deatheaters. They'd placed subtle anti-apparition wards around the house, so hopefully it would stop the Deatheaters getting away.

The night exploded into light and noise, and Hermione waited patiently with her team, blood pumping adrenaline around her system, every sense on high alert. Which is how she had the split second warning about the rear attack.

"Down!" She shouted, barely audible over the battle in front of her. She dropped into a crouch, already firing spells at the Deatheaters behind her. They were trapped, and she saw that Carey hadn't been fast enough, the ex-Ravenclaw lay dead on the grass.

"Break!" Came a shout from somewhere, and the Deatheaters scattered. But Hermione knew that voice.

"Michaels, Millan, with me!" She yelled, running after the Deatheaters into the forest. She could see them ahead, and she dropped several with well-aimed hexes. Finally she was face to face with one, and he spun to face her, eyes blazing from behind the silver death's-head mask. The flare of a hex illuminated them for a brief second, and they both froze.

Hermione was facing Draco Malfoy.

And Draco Malfoy was facing the Woman from The Tower.

"My Lord!"

"Hermione!"

Two shouts from the side, two flashes of light, and an explosion that flared, brightened, and became very hot very quickly. And when the light and smoke faded, both were gone.

&

Draco had known the moment he'd seen the twin flashes of light that the spells, each aimed diagonally, would meet, combine, and explode. And he'd also known that this woman, the Woman from The Tower, was not going to burn in an explosion. Not while he had it in his power to save her. So he'd stepped forward, pinned her wand hand and brought her close to his body, all in a split second, and apparated away before the explosion set them both alight.

Unfortunately, his apparation had been careless, and he hadn't taken the time to think properly. All he'd been able to think of was protecting her, of not letting her die again, not letting her suffer again. Of not leaving her to lie in suspended animation with tearstreaks on her cheeks and a necklace dangling from her fingers like a pendulum, ticking away time.

And so, while he had managed to not splinch himself, or her, he had managed to apparate them into The Tower. Only The Tower was on it's side, beside the ruin that was Hogwarts, intact only by virtue of the spells that had warded and protected the room. The suspended animation was gone though, his ability to move confirmed that.

"What the fuck!" Hermione ripped herself from his grasp and spun, wand raised. "What the hell did you do?"

"Saved your life." Draco said mildly, removing the hood and mask and dropping them indifferently to the floor. The revelation that the Woman was actually Hermione Granger had rattled him, but he was determined not to show it. "Although we now have the problem of getting out."

"You apparated us into somewhere we couldn't get out of? That was clever." She sneered.

"At least I did something." He returned calmly. He looked around for the door, then looked up.

Well, that was typical. The door was directly above them, on the ceiling. There was no way in hell they'd be getting out of here, not without helping each other, anyway.

"And why did you do that?" She asked coldly. "Why didn't you kill me the moment you saw me?"

"I noticed you didn't either." He replied. "Nor am I dead now, while my back is turned to you and your wand is still raised."

"I only kill to people's faces." Hermione managed, her voice slightly strangled. Draco turned slowly, those unnerving grey eyes searching her face.

"After all this time," He said softly, "And you still find it difficult to kill." He smiled. "How like you." She didn't reply, staring stonily at him. He faced her fully, and held out his hands. "Well, here I am. Facing you." Hermione met his gaze and held it, and Draco was struck by the strength he saw there. Strength to do what was right, no matter what the cost. But on her terms.

Killing, but only face to face.

"We're in a tower." Hermione said flatly. "A round one, with the door on the ceiling. I can't move it on my own. So killing you would have no purpose."

"Ah." He nodded sagely and dropped his hands. "And when we escape this tower? What then? First to draw?"

"That's how it is." She said flatly, her voice belying the uncertainty that flared for a mere second in her eyes.

"Because it was made this way. For us." Draco replied mysteriously, and she glared but did not allow herself to ask what he meant.

"Whatever, Malfoy. Let's just get the hell out of here." She said darkly.

"As the lady commands." He said mockingly, and she resigned herself to ignoring him.

Hours later, and they had had no luck whatsoever. They'd tried magic, but it had failed. The wards on the room were such that the spells just bounced of the sides, ricocheting around the tower forcing the two to duck and jump about until the spell subsided.

They tried that once.

Several failed attempts proved that the tower would not be moved by trying to roll it either, they merely made fools of themselves running at the sides like a gerbil on a wheel.

After that, Draco sat down to collect his thoughts, but she was distracting him. She was pacing, face set in thought, occasionally muttering to herself. She was the splitting image of the Woman in the Tower, but instead of tear-streaked, she was beautifully dishevelled, a pink flush high on her cheeks, and could as easily have come from bed as from a battle. More easily, even.

She caught him watching her and glared.

"What?" She snapped. He shook his head.

"Nothing."

"You were staring." She accused.

"Yeah, I was." He nodded.

"Why?" He shrugged.

"Because you're pacing the room like a caged tiger and as the only moving object in the room you draw my attention." The answer seemed to unsettle her because she frowned, then turned away and continued pacing, stepping over the mask and hood for what seemed like the millionth time. Draco was personally surprised she hadn't spitefully stepped on both, grinding them both into the wall-floor of the tower.

Suddenly, she stopped pacing and dropped to the floor opposite him, leaning back against the slope of the wall with a sigh, staring up at the door that mocked them with its closeness.

"Nothing?" He said wryly. She shook her head, but didn't look at him. "Nor me."

"Why did you do it?" She asked, sitting up and meeting his gaze. "And don't answer with a question, just…just answer. You should have left me to die." He nodded.

"You're right, I should have. And everything I have ever been taught, save for one conversation and one experience, screamed for your death. But, lucky for you, that conversation and that experience were enough to save your life."

"Is that meant to generate a thank you?" She asked, one eyebrow arched. He smirked.

"No."

"Good. Answer the question." Draco stared at her for a moment, trying to decide what to tell her, how much to tell her. Did he tell her about the woman who had slept in this tower in suspended animation? The woman that had loved him and he had loved back so much he died so she, in turn, died so he could live? Did he explain his confirmed theories that the woman had been her, from an alternate future, and the black-haired man had been Harry, and the red head who had explained it all had been Ron? His friends in an alternate future?

Or did he just say she reminded of someone he had once loved? Accurate, yet as far from the truth as he could get?

"You remind me of someone I loved. You look very like her." Hermione's eyes grew wide, and he could practically hear the cogs in her head turning. Then, to his surprise, she smiled.

"I'm glad." She whispered.

"What?" He asked, confused.

"I'm glad. That you have loved. I was afraid you hadn't."

"What- why?" He demanded, utterly bewildered by her explanation.

"Sometimes…I used to wonder. You've got this reputation as someone cold, emotionless. Someone who doesn't feel for anyone. It makes you a very capable killer." She nodded slightly. "But I always…well, I thought it was sad, for you, if you never loved. Even just the love of a friend. Not pity-" She said hurriedly, watching the expression on his face. "Just…I don't know. Not pity. I just always hoped, for you, that there was someone who you loved. Just to keep you human."

"Stop me being the next Voldemort?" Draco said wryly. She shrugged with a little nod.

"I guess." She shook her head. "It's stupid, I shouldn't even _care_, Harry and Ron would go mad if they found out. I'm not meant to care, not meant to think of you or any of the Deatheaters as anything other than evil to be destroyed."

"We are evil." Draco said, satisfaction in his voice. She rolled her eyes.

"Evil men still love." She said quietly. She shook her head and fell silent.

During his school career, cut short as it was, Draco had never made the slightest effort to get to know 'Mudblood Granger'. She'd been filth, dirt beneath his shoe, the thorn in his side. All he knew about her was that she was clever, and that she hung out with Potter, that she was Gryffindor and cleaned up well.

That was, essentially, it.

He had never imagined, back then, that he could fall in love with such a woman. And chances were, he couldn't. This woman, the one sitting awkwardly in front of him twirling her wand thoughtfully between her fingers, was a different story. He could imagine loving her easily.

Which was both surreal and disturbing.

The fact that she looked bed-tumbled, as flushed and dishevelled as though someone had just ravished her mere seconds before she'd thrown on clothes did not help. She'd been attractive at school, but then Malfoy had thought of nothing but the other girls. And then there had been the Woman. And suddenly, he found Mudblood Granger and the Woman had meshed into one; beautiful and strong and determined.

And, in the alternate universe, willing to sacrifice herself to change the future so he might live. That kind of devotion, that strength of love that fuelled the will and brains of a woman who might have any man she desired, especially when she looked like this…it was something Draco had never even considered wanting.

He found himself wanting now.

"You're staring again." Hermione said, breaking into his thoughts. He shook his head to clear it. "What was her name? The one I remind you of?" He stared at her, unable to answer, and she took his silence for a rebuttal and looked back down at her hands and the twirling wand. "Sorry."

"What do you know about time travel?" He asked. Her head jerked up and she frowned.

"I know it won't get it out of this mess." She said with a small laugh.

"No, seriously." He insisted. "Time travel. What do you know?"

"Some." She shrugged. "It's dangerous, and the mechanisms are complicated. It's how I managed third year." She said with a slight smirk. His eyes widened.

"What?"

"I took lots of classes third year. Some of them were at the same time. I had to be simultaneously at two places at once. So I used a Time Turner. Only for the year though, it was exhausting. Why do you ask?"

"Would it be possible," He began warily, trying to phrase it carefully so she wouldn't get suspicious and dismiss him. "For someone from the future to go back and change the past in order to prevent something happening?"

"Definitely." Hermione hesitated for a moment, then grinned. "I did that too."

"Excuse me?" Draco asked, his eyes widened. Surely she couldn't know?

"Third year. Remember the hippogriff that scratched your arm?"

"He gouged me." Draco corrected darkly. She rolled her eyes.

"Remember how he was sentenced for death, but then he got away?"

"Yes. And Black escaped."

"We did that. We went back in time about two hours, saved Buckbeak, saved Sirius, stopped Harry getting Kissed to death by Dementors. Happy ending."

"Seriously?" He demanded, and her lips twitched as she nodded. "So it's possible."

"What's the scenario, and I'll tell you how likely it is." She said. "Or, at least, I'll try."

"Seventh year student dies, so another seventh year goes back to first year to prevent certain occurrences that lead, in the long run, to the first student's death."

"That's simple enough." Hermione said with a shrug. "Changing past events to affect the future is all too easily done. But the person who had gone back would be trapped until the equivalent moment of when they'd gone back. So if they left Christmas 2007 to go back to Christmas 2000 and change events, they'd have to wait around until Christmas 2007 again."

"And then what?" Draco asked. Hermione shrugged.

"As far as I understand it, they cease to exist. Their younger double carries on, and the older just…ends. Vanishes."

"There one second, gone the next." Draco said quietly, remembering how the red-headed man, who he was almost certain had been an older Ron Weasley, had simply vanished without a trace.

"Why do you ask?" Hermione asked, curiosity piqued.

"No reason. I was curious. I always wondered how the hell you got to so many classes in third year." Draco said, losing his nerve suddenly. Hermione gave him a shrewd look but didn't press the issue. She glanced at her watch.

"They're going to think we're prisoners." She said into the quiet. "Yours and mine."

"You're a prisoner." He corrected. "Mine will think I'm dead. I don't get caught."

"No. Except when you lock yourself in towers." She said with a slight smirk. He glared back, but it had lost a lot of its fire.

"What about you?" He asked. "You should have killed me in the forest. Instead you stood and stared at me." Her lips quirked into a smile.

"It was a diversionary tactic." She said mockingly.

"A poor one, at that." He commented, both on her excuse and her use of staring as a tactic. "Answer." She sighed, looking away.

"I find it…hard." She admitted finally, looking up. "I've been fighting this war in one form or another since I was eleven. But before I never had to kill, never had to extinguish a life. And while Harry sometimes says my most remarkable trait is my strength to do what is right, no matter what…I just find it so hard. Especially if I knew them. I spoke with you, shouted at you, slapped you, hated you…" Her voice quieted and she looked down. "I hated you so much." She whispered, her hand clenching around her wand so tightly he thought she was going to break it. "But that level of involvement, that much emotion tied into to you…you're not some evil nameless shadow. You're Draco Malfoy, who lived to make my life hell as children and then grew up to become the one man we've all sworn to kill."

"But you didn't kill me."

"Nameless shadows, black cloaks and silver masks…they're nothing. Puppets. As long as I don't meet their eyes I can say the words. I could have killed you, but I looked up, and I saw your eyes. And I knew instantly who you were, and then I hesitated."

"That will get you killed." He said quietly.

"I'd prefer that." She answered honestly. "I'd prefer to die because I'd hesitated to murder someone than to live because killing meant nothing to me."

"Then Potter was right about you." Draco said simply. "Your greatest trait is your strength. To stand and die rather than kill someone in cold blood."

"This coming from a Deatheater."

"Evil men can still love, and Good men can still hate." Draco echoed her words.

"I knew that would come back and bite me some day." She said bitterly.

"Don't." He said sharply, and she frowned, looking at him in confusion. "Don't belittle yourself." He elaborated. "You…God, Hermione, in all this war, you still find it hard to kill. You would prefer to die, hesitating to kill, than live having killed hundreds. And you, one woman in a crowd of hundreds, remember that humans are not black and white, evil and good. Don't belittle yourself. Ever." There was a pause, where she stared at him with wide eyes. Several times she opened her mouth as though she was going to say something, then shut it again. Finally, she spoke.

"You called me Hermione."

&

Hours passed, and they considered and discarded hundreds of ideas, discussed and discarded a hundred more. They had formed an unlikely partnership, trying to get themselves out of the tower. It was ironic, all those times Draco had wished to be in the tower, with _her_, that now, when he finally got his wish, he wanted to be out of the tower.

Well, he did and he didn't.

He certainly couldn't stay here forever. But the moment they left the tower, gone would be the camaraderie, the banter, and the unanswered questions that burned in both their minds to which they would not give voice.

He wanted to leave, but in leaving he would lose _her_. The woman who, in another life, had loved him so much that she had sacrificed everything to keep him alive. The woman who mourned his death even as she ensured his life. The woman who had loved him.

The woman he had, once upon a time, gone willingly to his death for.

She couldn't know how he felt, didn't understand the burning emotion in his eyes the split second before he realised she was looking. But in explaining, he could lose her entirely.

"Why do you look at me like that?" She turned from yet another fruitless attempt to escape and put her hands on his hips. He raised an eyebrow.

"Like what?"

"Like…like I'm a puzzle. A puzzle you're willing to expend energy into solving. Like I have an answer to a question that you're dying to ask but won't. Like you're torn between telling me a secret that would potentially kill us both for the telling and the knowing but it's still destroying you inside. Like locking yourself in here with me was possibly the best thing you've ever done with your life but you have to work out what to do about it before we think of a way to escape and our time runs out. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Draco stared at her in shock. And then, to her surprise, he started laughing.

"I'd forgotten," He said as his laughter died away, "How painfully astute you could be." Hermione stared, then dropped to the floor suddenly, as though her legs suddenly wouldn't hold her. "Why am I looking at you like that? Because you have answers I need. Because if I explain to you why you'll either kill me or laugh in my face, but if I don't explain you won't even have a chance of understanding. Because I locked us in here on purpose, though not consciously." He moved and crouched in front of her. She resolutely looked down, but he put one finger under her chin and tipped her head up so her gaze met his. "I will tell you. But only if you want to know."

"I'm not sure I want to know." Hermione whispered, brown eyes locked with his grey. "Though I will ask why you picked this tower, of all places."

"It was a safe place for me, at Hogwarts. As a tower, it was warded. You could enter only as far as the door swung, and then it was blocked off. Inside there were two people, in suspended animation. I used to come here to think, or to try and work out an idea. I felt safe up here, no one knew where I was and no one could find me. When I realised the spells would combine and explode, I grabbed you and went somewhere safe. This is what my mind picked."

"Your safe spot in the castle." Hermione nodded, understanding. "That makes sense. And also helps, quite a bit." He frowned, confused, and she rose, stepping around him and looking thoughtfully up at the door above them. "You said this room was warded." He nodded. "And in suspended animation?"

"I assumed so. The people there…I don't know how long they'd been there but they never moved-"

"Were they dead?" She asked bluntly. He shook his head.

"I can't be sure. But I don't think so." She nodded.

"Then we're inside the warded room. Obviously not in suspended animation, although technically we could just be moving so slowly that anyone outside would think we were completely still."

"Movement would have made the necklace swing." Draco shook his head. "And it never moved at all."

"Necklace?"

"There was a necklace hanging from her fingers." Draco said shortly. She nodded.

"So lets assume there is no suspended animation for now. However…" She turned and faced him. "Where are they?"

"Vanished."

"Where?"

"Their time had come." He said flatly. And watched, slightly bemused, as awareness dawned on her face and her eyes widened. She resisted the urge to ask, and nodded sharply, before turning back to the challenge at hand.

"Maybe…" She began, but subsided, thinking hard.

"What?" Draco moved to stand beside her, staring up at the door.

"Nothing, actually. Well, nothing helpful. I was going to say what if she locked herself in, using the necklace as a key-charm. But that's useless as we don't have the necklace so…what?" Draco was tugging at his collar, and suddenly he was pulling at something and then lying in his hand was a silver snake studded with green gems. "You stole her necklace?" Hermione demanded, aghast.

"No! I couldn't get in, remember?" Draco snapped back, annoyed that she'd thought he'd steal the necklace. "This was a gift from my father, when I turned eighteen. It's the same necklace."

"But how?"

"Different futures." He said shortly, well aware that any second now her genius mind would make the connection and she'd know half the story.

"But same necklace." A split second. "But that means-"

"I gave the woman the necklace in the other future. Yes, I know. Please, let's move on." He said tiredly.

"She made a great sacrifice for you." Hermione said quietly, taking the necklace from him with a care that bordered on reverence.

"I know." He whispered. She glanced at him, and for a brief second she caught his eyes, and she looked away hurriedly. What she saw there…pain, regret, sorrow, longing…

"I think I can do this." Hermione said, looking around the tower once more, then back up to the door. "If this works the way I'm hoping, if I can get up there and use the necklace to break the wards, we should be able to use magic to roll the tower enough to reach the door and get out."

"And how were you planning on getting up there?"

"Give a girl a leg up?" She asked, fluttering her eyelashes. It broke the sombre mood and he nodded with a smirk, forming a stirrup. She put her foot in it, her hands on his shoulders. "Do not drop me." She warned him. Their faces were very close.

"Hope you aren't heavy." He said with a grin. "On three. Three!" He hoisted her up and she shrieked a little but reached up anyway.

"I need to be higher." She said. "By about a foot."

"You need to be taller by about a foot." He muttered darkly.

"Come on, Malfoy!" She insisted, and he precariously lifted her up higher. She was heavy, but not exceedingly so. She stretched up, higher, higher, and then her hand passed through the wards by the door and the snake pendant touched the door for a brief second. There was a surge of magic and she wavered, and suddenly she was falling with a shriek.

"Gotcha!" Strong arms cradled her inches from the ground, and again, their faces were uncomfortably close. "You alright?" He asked, something almost like concern in his voice. She nodded slowly.

"Fine. The wards are down." He nodded, setting her down and releasing her.

"I assumed that's what the surge was. Shall we have a go and moving this thing?"

"Only one of us." Hermione said cautiously. "Just in case it bounces." Draco nodded, aimed his wand at the wall, and concentrated. The tower rocked, and Hermione climbed shakily to her feet. "It worked." He nodded. "Shall we?" He glanced at her, then away.

"Lets." He said coolly, already some of the Deatheater persona resurfacing. Hermione sighed, and the pair of them set to work.

They nearly went too far, and it was only by cautious use of a freezing spell that they stopped it. They scrambled up the wall and out of the door, dropping gratefully into the muddy ground outside. Draco looked at her.

"Goodbye." He said. And disappeared.

"Wait!" She exclaimed, too late. The snake pendant was still glittering in her left hand, and with a sigh she pocketed it. Then she, too, apparated home.

&


	6. The Necklace

Author Note: Hey guys, here's your next chapter. I've managed to finish this now, so I can update a bit more regularly, although the more you review, the faster I update. And yes, I am bribing you. :) Enjoy.

&

"Hey there." Harry knocked gently on her open door and stuck his head through. "How're you feeling?" Hermione looked up from the blueprints she was studying with a smile.

"Come on in." She said, gesturing with her wand and clearing a space on her bed for Harry to sit. "I'm fine."

"People don't know whether to say you were captured or whether you deserted."

"If I'd deserted do you think I would have come home?" Hermione asked, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms, brown eyes fixed on him. He shifted.

"We know you were captured, 'Mione." He said reassuringly. "It's just the people who don't know you who are saying that."

"I was grabbed and side-apparated out." Hermione said truthfully. "But it wasn't much of a prison and I escaped." It was something she'd said repeatedly to everyone who asked. And it was the truth, which always helped. Even under veritaserum, that would be what she would say. Not that she expected it to come to that.

"It's strange, that they didn't up their security for someone like you." Harry commented. Hermione sighed.

"It was a rookie. Alone. Trying for his bit of glory." Hermione was lying now, and was careful to keep it short.

"What happened to him?" Harry asked. Hermione looked at him coldly and he sighed.

"It's one of the things I admire most." He said quietly. "That you find killing so hard. I find it far too easy. So easy it scares me." Hermione smiled sadly but couldn't answer. There was nothing for her to say. Harry cleared his throat and rose. "Anyway. I just came to see if you were okay."

"And to question me about my capture." Hermione filled in the words he wouldn't say. "Don't be ashamed that you trust me, Harry, and that you still have to ask. I understand. I don't blame you for your questions." Harry laid a hand on her shoulder, dropping a kiss onto the crown of her head.

"I wish I could hide you away." He said softly, his fingers trailing through her hair. "I wish I could lock you safe in a tower until this was over and you could come out and save the world." She smiled up at him, her mind back in the tower with Malfoy.

"If you tried it I would have to hurt you." She said teasingly.

"God, I know. You would put me in St Mungos for weeks!" He smiled sadly. "But I can't help but think it would be worth it." He shook his head, clearing his throat again and she caught his hand in hers.

"I love that you wish you could." She said softly. "I love that it scares you, how you can kill." She smiled. "And I love you, my dearest friend."

"Good." He grinned, and the moment was broken. "Because I'm counting on that love to stop you killing me when I tell you that Moody has left you out of our next attack plan."

"The wanker!" Hermione hissed. "He thinks I'm a traitor?"

"He thinks everyone is a traitor." Harry said soothingly. "Including, occasionally, himself."

"He has good reason for that." Hermione retorted angrily. "Damn the man!"

"All the way to hell and back." Harry agreed. Hermione sighed, her anger gone as fleetingly as it had come. "Are you mad?"

"At him, definitely. Not at you." She shook her head, squeezing his hand. "Be safe, all right? Don't bring back any bodybags."

"Nobody dares to die, Hermione. They all know you'll follow them there and shred them." Harry grinned, and kissed her forehead. "Don't kill Moody while I'm gone."

"No promises." She said, lips twitching as she resisted a smile. Harry nodded and slipped his hand from hers, striding resolutely to the door. He turned.

"And Hermione?" She looked up with a smile.

"I love you too." She nodded, and watched as he vanished from sight. She waited until even his footprints were gone, then rose. She hesitated a second, then crossed to her jewelery box. She lifted the two shelves out and revealed a black velvet jewelery bag. She unburied it from the other necklaces and pulled it out, tucking it into her pocket without even looking at the contents. Then she sat on her bed and waited.

About three minutes later the grandfather clock on the landing tolled one in the morning, and with a determined swallow, Hermione disapparated.

She landed precariously on the railing of the balcony of a third floor bedroom of Malfoy manor and wobbled dangerously for a second for jumping gently to the ground, bending her knees and taking the shock up her legs so her landing didn't make too much noise. Then she slipped into the shadow of a tall potted plant and waited.

This was dangerous. Incredibly so. If anyone knew she had come here willingly, she'd probably be locked up, especially considering the ongoing investigation into her 'capture'. But she had no intention of actually meeting the man; there was a four minute gap in about five minutes where the wards went down so the Deatheaters could apparate away. In that time, Hermione would slip into the bedroom, leave the necklace, slip out and apparate home. No one would know she was there but Malfoy, and that would only be guesswork. She didn't want to keep the necklace…it was far too much of a giveaway. Even without knowing its origins, anyone seeing a silver and green snake pendant in a Order of the Phoenix safehouse would assume traitor. And chances were they'd be right. And at the moment, Hermione had more than enough suspicion on her name without someone looking for evidence and finding it.

This was the safest way.

Despite the logic of that argument, however, Hermione was undergoing this particular mission with considerable reluctance. She had no idea why, but she wanted to keep the necklace. It was only her logic and sense of self-preservation that prevented her from changing her mind and apparating home again.

There. The telltale wave of goosebumps that swept down her arms alerted her that the wards were down. Hermione quickly set to work, picking the lock on the balcony door and slipping silently inside, a black shadow in a dark room, stepping softly over carpeted floorboards to the dresser and gently laying the pendant there in its little velvet bag. She turned and headed for the balcony.

"Freeze."

Obligingly, she froze, cursing her stupidity. Why didn't she just chuck the damned necklace in the lake? It would have served Malfoy right, seeing as it was his fault she'd been left with it in the first place.

"What have we here?" Hermione cringed. This was embarrassing. She did _not_ want to be caught here, not by him and especially not by anyone else. A heavy hand on her shoulder made her turn, lifting her chin as his wand dug into her neck. Her wand was tucked into her pocket. She had been careless, reckless. Unprepared for the eventuality that he would walk in on her. She had assumed he would see his guests off.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

"Granger!" He sounded surprised, and his eyes narrowed. "What the fuck are you doing here?" With a gesture the wards went back up, making Hermione shiver. "Where are your friends?"

"I'm alone." She answered, her voice pitched low and quiet to keep it steady.

"I don't believe you." He sneered.

"I came to return the necklace." She elaborated. "I couldn't keep it. I'm already under suspicion of being a traitor after the night in the Tower." His expression didn't change. "It's on the dresser." She pointed past him.

"Accio necklace." He said, eyes still on her. The necklace whizzed towards him and he caught it lightning-quick, a throwback to his Seeker days. He passed it to her. "Open it." He ordered. She did so blindly, her eyes locked on him. She'd been taught that even the most unreadable person could often be read through their eyes, but it didn't look as though Malfoy was one of those people. His eyes were crystalline and hard, completely unreadable.

Finally she undid the tie to the bag and emptied the necklace into her hand. She slowly raised her hand so the pendant swung slightly beside her face.

"It's just the necklace." She whispered. "I brought it back to you. That's it. I swear." She hesitated. "Malfoy, I swear it."

"Keep it." He said abruptly, dropping his wand and turning away. Hermione hesitated, then lowered it gently onto the table beside them before turning to the window. He stopped at the click of the pendant on wood. "Didn't you hear me? I told you to keep it."

"And I told you I couldn't." Hermione shook her head, not looking back at him. She reached for the door handle, but his hand grasped hers, pinning it to the brass handle.

"Couldn't or wouldn't?" He asked quietly, his voice frighteningly close to her ear.

"Both." She looked up and met his gaze. "I told you. They already think I'm a traitor because of that night. Having a snake pendant in my room…they'd slam me in Azkaban before I'd had a chance to say anything."

"Even the Golden Girl?"

"Even the Golden Girl." She shook her head. "Why do you think I'm not working tonight? I'm off the active roster until they think they can trust me again."

"So you're not working?" He raised an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"I told you, no!" She shook her head. "I should have just chucked the damn thing in the lake."

"You should have." He agreed.

"But it was yours. And it was hers. And I didn't feel I had the right." She held his gaze stubbornly, and then he laughed.

"You and your morals, Granger. First you'll only kill someone to their face, and then you won't chuck a necklace in a lake! Your morals will get you killed someday."

"They might get me killed tonight." She said flatly, "Unless I'm back soon. Let me go, Malfoy." He smiled slowly, and Hermione braced herself. She knew that smile.

"Don't you want to know why?" He asked softly. Hermione frowned, well aware she was walking straight into his trap.

"Why what?" She asked. His smile widened.

"Why I gave it to you. Why you're not dead. Why I didn't kill you the moment we escaped that tower." Hermione lifted her chin.

"I hadn't thought about it." She said flatly.

"Liar." He said with a small laugh. "I bet you've thought of almost nothing else in the week since."

"Not true." Hermione argued. She sighed. "But I did wonder. Although I think I worked out some of it for myself."

"Like what?"

"Like you and the woman were lovers in some alternate future. That something happened and she came back to change the future, then put herself to sleep until the point where her future was completely unviable and she ceased to exist."

"Very clever."

"It's not a hard scenario to imagine." Hermione shook her head.

"What, that someone loved me enough to come back and change the future or that that kind of travel is possible?"

"I know its possible." Hermione shook her head. "An utter bastard you may be, Malfoy, but it's not completely inconceivable that someone might love you."

"That's encouraging." Malfoy agreed, releasing her. He stepped back. "I won't stop you leaving." Hermione nodded, but she still didn't move.

"Who was she?" Hermione asked quietly. "I know you said you'd only tell me if I wanted to know and I'm not sure I do, but…I need to know, I think."

"Are you sure?" Draco asked, and Hermione was surprised by the seriousness of his tone, and more than a little suspicious. "I can't take it back, once I've said it. And you'll know, for better or worse."

"Come on, Malfoy, how bad could it be?" Hermione asked, laughing awkwardly. He looked at her seriously, and her laughter died out. "Tell me."

"It was you."

Hermione stared. Malfoy didn't say anything further, just stood and waited her out, grey eyes fixed on her, watching the expressions cross her face. First, confusion, as she got her head around what he had just said. Then disbelief, followed swiftly by anger and denial. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned, heading for the balcony. Malfoy grabbed her arm and though she tried to shake him off, he held fast in a grip that would probably bruise.

"I'm not lying to you." He said flatly. She glared up at him.

"I didn't say you were." She snapped.

"You didn't have to." He shrugged but didn't release her arm. "I told you you didn't want to know. I warned you."

"Oh, cut the bullshit out, Malfoy." She sneered. "I don't know what game you're playing but you're even more talented than I thought. I won't underestimate you again."

"I don't doubt it." He replied, silver eyes still boring into hers.

"Let me go." She said softly, her body suddenly relaxing, the angry tension draining from her. "Just…lower the wards and let me go."

"Why?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. She looked at him steadily.

"Why not?"

And though there was a hundred reasons why he should keep her there, force her to stay, he raised the wards.

And she was gone.

&

Taking the necklace back had possibly been one of the worse ideas Hermione had ever had. Not that she'd had an awful lot of bad ones, or bad ones that she'd actually acted on, but that particular idea, where she snuck into his house, left the necklace, then left again…

That needed a whole new spectrum to cope with how bad an idea it was. Because now, while suspicion was fading and it appeared no one had noticed her little jaunt to the Malfoy Manor, she had Malfoy's voice in her head, saying again and again 'it was you', like she _cared_ that in an alternate timeline she had loved him enough to sacrifice herself to save his life, and going back that far in time was damned dangerous so clearly she must have been insane anyway, which explained everything, actually.

Despite the obvious logic of the situation, and her determination to forget the whole unfortunate encounter, her mind refused to be convinced. It returned again and again to their conversation, but more than that, it returned to the memory of the Tower, of the look in his eyes when he realised where he was, when he told her about the Woman.

It was a look Hermione didn't much want to think about, or consider in any meaningful way.

"Hermione!" Harry burst into her room and she jumped, turning to look at him. He was fresh back from the raid, still bedraggled and muddy and he had a fresh scrape along his cheekbone. He waved her off as she rose to look at it, and when she was satisfied it was just a scrape, she sat back down.

"Harry. It went well, then?" She raised an eyebrow and Harry grinned wider.

"It was fantastic!" He said with unbridled enthusiasm. "They didn't even know what hit them! They were all coming out, laughing and joking and completely unprepared, and suddenly we were there and bam! They were all laid out like pretty maids all in a row." He grinned at her and she smiled back, or at least tried to. It was at moments like this that she felt farthest from her friends. Even when she accompanied them on the raid, the rush of adrenaline that kept the boys talking about it like a Quidditch victory party died out quicker in her, leaving her drained and saddened. She knew well that Deatheaters had spouses and children and friends.

The only thing separating her from Pansy Parkinson was a set of ideals and a sense of style.

A sobering thought.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" Harry asked, frowning. "You're really quiet."

"Hard to speak when I can't get a word in edgeways!" Hermione joked, though she saw Harry wasn't convinced.

"Oh, 'Mione, I'm sorry." He rose and hugged her. "I just wanted to see you, I knew you'd be worried, sat here all night wondering if we'd managed to get ourselves killed this time. I wasn't thinking, telling you what we did."

"I'm a grown woman, Harry, and I've killed my fair share." Hermione pulled back, straightening her shirt. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I don't worry." He winked. "Much. I just know you don't like to hear about them."

"Thank you for the thought, at least." Hermione said wryly. "And I am glad you're home. I do worry." _Even if I was too busy breaking into our enemies home to return his necklace which belonged to his lover in a alternate future which happens to be me in both futures which is ridiculous because I don't love him now and good god how could I ever? He tortured us for years, and he's a git and annoying, and I know full well he'd kill us all given half the chance and you'd kill him give a quarter of the chance and god only knows what you'd do to me if you found out I'd so much as spoken to him in a way that didn't insult his mother and god I went to his house and god how he looked at me-_

"Hermione!" The sharpness in his tone indicated it was not the first time Harry had tried to regain her attention.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I'm just really tired." Hermione said, looking up to meet his gaze. He unlike Draco, showed his emotions in his eyes and she knew he didn't believe her.

But he let it drop.

"Alright. Get some sleep, 'Mione, I think Moody is thinking about letting you back on the active roster sometime soon, we missed a few Deatheaters that I know you'd have taken care of if you'd been out tonight so he'll probably choose practicality over paranoia and put you back up."

"That's good." Hermione nodded. "Honestly, you'd think I was Pansy Parkinson, the looks he's been giving me."

"Not a chance, sweetheart." He said with a grin, leaning in to kiss her cheek before heading for the door. "You actually have a dress sense." Hermione laughed and Harry bowed theatrically before vanishing out her door.

Hermione's laughter faded and she sank onto the bed. She had to get Malfoy out of her head, she had to-

"Oh, and by the way, Ron says hi, he's going to be with Charlie for a week looking into potential weapons." Harry popped his head around the door again. He frowned when he saw her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, Harry." She reassured him. "Just tired."

"Alright. Well, sleep tight, 'Mione."

"You too." Hermione watched him disappear again and as soon as the door closed she rose and locked it, preventing any more surprise visits. She started getting ready for bed, even though dawn was approaching quickly this late in the summer, and resolved to put Malfoy out of her mind and to return to her work. She had some research projects going on, things that could turn the tide of the war, if she could just figure them out.

That was the important thing, more than anything else. Ending this war so the dying could stop.

&


	7. Risking

Hey folks. Only a short update for you today, but now that I've finished the story the updates should be coming quicker with any luck. Please keep reviewing to tell me what you think, criticism is always welcome as well as praise, I'm not gonna get any better unless people teach me! Merry Christmas to everyone and hopefully I'll update again by the New Year!

I hope you like this. Istalindar

&

She tried. She honestly did. She was making considerable progress on all her projects in her time off active service, though in all fairness she had been neglecting them. Things like better protection potions, the kind that stopped spells from impacting. Or an improved chameleon potion, which was practically an invisibility potion in itself. Things she could do, things she was well on the way to doing. Things that could give them the advantage.

But her mind constantly returned to Malfoy. It was getting annoying, now. She had found it difficult to concentrate that night she had returned from the Manor, when Harry had come in, jubilant from a successful raid. She had expected it to fade though, the revelation fading to the back of her mind with time. She wanted it to be easily forgotten.

It wasn't.

It was just so farfetched. In another life, another time, she and Draco had been lovers. Draco, Ron and Harry had been friends. They had been so close that they all sacrificed their lives as they knew them to go back and spare Draco the consequences of their friendship.

Logically, it was simple. They were friends in an alternate future and Hermione knew all about those from third year. Draco died because he refused the Dark Mark so the remaining three came back in time, again possible with a Time-turner, and changed the future so he grew up an evil bastard to ensure he didn't refuse the Dark Mark again. He didn't, he lived, and somehow during his ongoing life he discovered what they'd all done. He told her.

Simple as that. Well, it wasn't all that simple, exactly, but it wasn't hard to get her head around.

What was more difficult was the emotional side to it. She had always hated him, as long as she'd known him, even if she did occasionally hope he wasn't as dead inside as he appeared. She'd never loved him, never even considered speaking to him unless it was to return an insult. So to go from one point of view to its polar opposite was both difficult and confusing.

And who's to say he wasn't lying for the sole purpose of getting her thusly confused? Everyone knew, and she wasn't being arrogant in saying, that she was the smartest witch of her generation and one of the smartest agents, witch or wizard, working for the Order. Draco had, intentionally or otherwise, mentally incapacitated her by shifting her focus from victory to him.

It was easier to think of it as a ploy to distract her. There was less emotional baggage involved that way. And it made it a lot easier to defeat.

She hoped.

&

"Ah. Hermione." Hermione nodded and shut the door of Moody's office behind her. The Aurors sat behind his desk, both eyes, for once, fixed on one spot: her. "I wanted to speak with you."

"Apparently."

"Sit." She did so, back straight and hands in her lap, not moving, her eyes fixed on him. "I've noticed, recently, that you've been quite distracted as of late. Is there something I should know about?"

"Nothing, sir. I just have a lot going on at the moment. The war, the research…it's all very much ongoing." Hermione said as naturally as possible. Moody nodded.

"Of course. However, if your load is too heavy you should have said something."

"It's not!" Hermione exclaimed. "It's just…things on my mind, sir."

"Ah well, then perhaps you should get them off your mind." Moody replied, not unkindly. "You've got two more days to get yourself sorted by yourself. Then Aurors are going to get nosy. Understand?" Hermione nodded, grateful for the warning. Not many people were told they were going to be thoroughly investigated before it happened.

"Yes sir. Thank you." Moody nodded.

"Ah, well. You're a good girl." He said gruffly, waving a hand towards the door. "Dismissed." She nodded and left without a word, heading straight for her room.

Two days. Counting today or otherwise, it wasn't much time. And she knew what would cure her distraction might just make it worse, but it didn't appear she had a choice.

She'd have to go back to the Manor.

She went that night, at midnight, disappearing from her room in the safehouse and appearing balanced precariously on Malfoy's balcony, just as before. The wards were up and she had no idea if they'd be down any time soon so she slipped through them with a series of spells. Malfoy would know she was here, of course, but at least she'd be inside. And she came to speak with him anyway.

She stepped through the door into his bedroom and sat quietly in the chair in the shadowed corner, waiting patiently for him. She had until dawn, she figured, before she had to be back at the safehouse to be unnoticed. It wasn't a lot of time, six hours at most, but it was the best she could do.

"Hermione." Draco stepped into the room and shut the door firmly behind him. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"You're in my head, and I need to get you out." She said bluntly, rising.

"Terribly sorry for the inconvenience." He said dryly, folding his arms. "But what do you expect me to do about it?"

He had a point. The fact that he was in Hermione's head, while his fault, was her problem alone.

"I don't know." She said finally. "But I had to do something." He smiled slightly at that.

"I'm not sorry you can't stop thinking about me," He began, and she rolled her eyes. "But that's not why I told you what I did. I'm not trying to make you fall in love with me or even like me. But I knew and felt that you had a right to know too."

"Why? It wasn't me."

"Do you honestly believe that, Hermione?" Draco stepped forward, within arms reach of her. "Truly?"

"I have never liked you." She replied softly, her gaze on his. "We were never friends. Nor were we ever lovers. The woman who came back in time to save your life was not me."

"Proof that the plan worked. As your friend, I died." Draco reminded her. "She came back with the sole purpose of preventing our friendship."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say to that.

"It doesn't really matter, though, does it?" She asked finally. "We're not them. They're both dead. We aren't."

"We're not them by deliberate design." Draco took another step forward, into her space and she stepped back, her legs bumping into the chair behind her, leaving her nowhere else to go. "Who knows if we would have become them if they hadn't meddled and prevented it."

"Who knows?" She echoed weakly. "But it doesn't _matter_, Draco. None of it _matters_."

"No?" Draco stepped forward again, hands framing her face as he hesitated a second before lowering his lips gently to hers. She saw his hesitation, knew he was giving her a chance to stop him, but she didn't. Just stood there, waiting as his lips touched hers, her face tipping up to meet his mouth, eyes fluttering shut.

He pulled back, and her eyes opened.

"Tell me that wasn't us." He whispered. "Tell me that wasn't real." She couldn't, and so he kissed her again, and again, and as he laid her back onto the bed, both of them partially undressed, he pulled back once more.

"Tell me it's not real." He said again, grey eyes boring into hers. "Tell me this isn't us."

"But it is." Hermione said helplessly. "This is us."

He kissed her again.

&

She woke alone, the side of the bed where he had slept cold and empty. There was a piece of parchment on the pillow though, and when she opened it she saw it was a sketch, not badly done either, of her asleep. There was a tiny _D.M_ in the corner, barely noticeable. Strange that she hadn't woken, though, she usually slept very lightly and even if it was Harry or Ron who came in when she was asleep she woke quickly. That she had managed to sleep through Draco's scrutiny as he sketched her was surprising. And a little bit disturbing.

But enough of that. A glance out the window told her she had already overslept; dawn was nearly passed already. She rose quickly and redressed, tucking the parchment into her pocket. She glanced quickly into the mirror to make sure she looked alright and paused. Hanging from her throat was the snake pendant.

With a small sigh of regret she undid the catch and left the necklace on the dresser before quickly stepping out to the balcony and apparating away, appearing back into her bedroom. She shed her clothes quickly and climbed into bed, closing her eyes and faking sleep, her mind still reeling.

She had _slept_ with Malfoy. And it had been utterly amazing and scarily enough, it had felt very real. Not in the not-a-dream sense, but in the oh-god-this-actually-means-something sense, though she was damned if she knew what it meant.

With that thought in mind, she fell asleep.

"Hermione, get up!" There was a rush and then the duvet was gone and Hermione groaned, curling into a ball. There was a spell, one she recognised, one that she realised was not good; right before icy cold water fell over her head. She screamed.

"Get _up_!" Hermione sat upright, dripping and glaring at Ginny Weasley, who put her wand away with a smile.

"I'm up you crazy bint!" Hermione snapped. Ginny continued smiling sweetly. "I doubt the water was necessary."

"Of course it was. It's nearly eleven and I am the fourth person come to get you out of bed. And I wasn't going to poke you or shout at you or whatever. I know what works so I used it."

"Fine." Hermione said grumpily, secretly glad it was Ginny who had gotten her out of bed, not one of the boys. She was dressed in last night's underwear so from a girls point of view, at least, she was semi-decent. The last thing she needed was the inevitable awkwardness that would come from Harry and Ron finding her in her underwear. You'd think after god knew how many years that they'd be used to idea of her being female, but apparently not. "What is it?"

"A heads up, apparently. Don't know what about though, its all very hush hush." Ginny rolled her eyes. "You'd better get move on. The meeting is in five minutes."

Four and a half minutes later, Hermione skidded into the meeting and into her seat, avoiding the demanding looks from Harry and Ron as they questioned both her tardiness and her prolonged sleep. Moody glanced at her and she nodded and he looked away. Cho came in last, shutting the door firmly behind her. It seemed she was to be the bearer of news.

"Thanks for getting here on such short notice." She began. "And I think you'll find this worth it. We've had a drop-off of some extensive, and if correct, invaluable information." She paused and smiled, and it almost seemed to Hermione as though the light in her eyes that had been doused with her child and her lover was back. "This morning there was a delivery by a Muggle post service of a long list of Deatheater safehouses. A very long list, as well as names, families, addresses, events…"

"A traitor?" Ron spoke up. Cho shrugged.

"We can only assume. Only a Deatheater would have this much sensitive information, and a high ranking one too. Why one defected we can't begin to imagine, so we're treating this as highly suspect. Extensive and thorough investigations will be carried out on every word of this information, and not until it is all proved sound will it be acted upon. This might give us the edge, or it might be the trap that destroys us. I'm not willing to take that chance." She paused again, and the room was so quiet Hermione could practically hear her heartbeat. "With that in mind, I'm going to divide us all into teams, with a portion of the information to investigate. Be vigilant; if you have a single doubt do not pass the information on as legitimate. We can't afford mistakes."

That was the truth, their numbers were far too few as it was.

"Right. The assignments are all here," Cho laid a hand on the stack of folders on the table in front of her. "You are all team leaders, so you all get a folder each. Inside is a list of the rest of your team members, it will be your responsibility to debrief them. This job takes first priority, folks. If this is right…I don't think I need to explain what this will mean for us." Everyone around the table shook their heads. Cho smiled again, and without another word began passing out folders. Each was two fingers high at least.

"Finally, some solid information." Ron muttered to Harry beside her. Harry nodded, glancing over at Hermione's folder.

"Who'd you get?" He asked. Hermione let the front cover fall back so he could see and he grimaced. "The Lestranges, Myra Borin, Kyle Lemons? I always thought he had an unfortunate name." Hermione grinned.

"Tell me about it. Who did you get?" Harry flipped his cover back too, so Hermione could see, but only one name glared up at her.

Draco Malfoy.

"I wanted Malfoy." Ron whined. "That's _so _not fair." Hermione rolled her eyes at his tone of voice.

"Tell you what. When we back him into a corner wandless, we can share." Harry grinned at Ron and they high-fived. Harry glanced at Hermione. "I think even you would finally enjoy bringing that bastard to justice." Hermione grinned, a little toothily.

"Always." She answered, even as her heart sunk like a rock.

"I can't wait to get this going." Ron said excitedly. "I wonder who brought us the info?"

Hermione could guess.

&


	8. The Truth

Wow, its been a really long time. It's the penultimate chapter, though, so enjoy it people. Istalindar

&

Stealing the Melpomene file was easy. Just a quick trip to his office at lunchtime while he was out to pick it up and it was hers. It was extrememly easy to steal from people who trusted you.

For the rest of the afternoon, the thought of the file in her bag burned in her mind while she worked. What had Harry said about him? How much did Harry know about her and him? Hermione clenched her teeth together. She wanted to talk to Harry, badly. But knew she couldn't and that was possibly the most annoying thing about it. Finally she gave in and packed up her stuff, pausing on the way out to claim migraine and nausea to her boss before she went home.

But the moment she was home, she found it all the harder to open the file. She cooked dinner, fed the cats, showered, ate, made at least three cups of tea without drinking them before finally taking herself in hand and forcing herself to sit and open the damned file.

And then spent the next five ours poring over it.

It had everything. From Harry's assignment on the arrival of the Deatheater Files, his tracking of Draco's movements, to his sudden realisation of the connection between his best friend and his enemy, the search of her bedroom and subsequent discovery of the sketch…Hermione's only annoyance was that the file did not explain Harry's thoughts on the subject; it was all very clinical and detached. She didn't know how he felt when he searched her room, or when he found the sketch that proved his worst nightmare. She didn't know how he felt afterward, if he ever came to terms with it or whether he did his utmost to not think about it.

Hermione badly wanted to know what he thought.

The file ended with the official death certificate of Draco Malfoy, showing that Harry had officially declared Draco dead, as Draco had said.

Then that was it.

Hermione sat on the couch, staring into space and trying to process what she had just read. It was a lot to take in, especially as one discrepancy as large as Malfoy's forged death certificate lent suspicion to the entire file. She wanted to talk to Harry, to demand the truth, but knew the moment she did Draco would be dead, for real this time. She knew from Ginny that he kept journals, they'd help. The only problem would be getting to them. Stealing from his office was one thing, stealing from the box under his bed was something slightly more duplicious and Hermione wasn't entirely sure she wanted to do that to her friend.

A lie. She knew she didn't want to do that to Harry, no matter how much he lied to her. And anyway. He saved Draco's life when he should have let him die.

Harry's conscience would get him in trouble some day.

The teeth-rattling burr of her phone vibrating on the coffee table broke into her thoughts, and Hermione picked it up, checking the called ID before flicking it open.

"Were your ears burning?" She asked with a wry smile.

"You were thinking of me?" Harry replied, grin evident in his voice. "Should I be flattered?"

"Depends." Hermione sighed. "What's up?"

"Ginny's doing a dinner shindig tomorrow night, and wondered if you wanted to come with. You know what she's like about cooking non-magically."

"Terrible?" Hermione asked with a laugh. Harry laughed as well.

"Yeah, but I didn't say that." Hermione smiled, leaning back into the couch. It was so easy to slip back into normalcy, as though there wasn't an inch-thick file on a man she might love sitting in front of her, written by the man on the other end of the phone line. "Hermione?"

"Yes?" Hermione focused again on Harry's voice, though her eyes still rested on the file.

"Are you alright?" He sounded concerned. "You're quiet."

"Don't you think we're lucky?" Hermione asked softly. "That everyone we loved came out of the war alive?"

"Yeah, I'd say we are." Harry agreed. Hermione sighed. "What is it, Hermione?"

"It's nothing. Just a moment of wishing I was born in a different era."

"It's not really something we get over, I get it." Harry said gently. "But we can forget."

"Do we deserve to forget, though?" Hermione asked. "All those people we ruined…do we deserve to forget, to act as though it never happened?" She was beginning to rant.

"Hermione-"

"No, I'm sorry." Hermione shook her head, biting down on the usual overflow of her thoughts. "Look, tell Ginny I'll be there tomorrow. I'll talk to you later."

"Alright, 'Mione. You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?" Harry asked. Hermione smiled faintly.

"Yeah, I do. Thanks Harry."

"No problem. Seven tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll see you. Bye."

"Take care, Hermione. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I will." Hermione slid her phone shut, cutting off the call. She sighed, eyes still on the file. She needed to talk to Harry. She knew she could make him swear not to tell the aurors…the Harry of the War, hard, stone-hearted Harry, had disappeared with Voldemort's death. The Harry she knew now…

God, she didn't know. What if the Harry she saw was only one facet? After all, during the war he had never said a bad word to her, but she knew what he was capable of. What if that was still the truth? What if the moment she raised the subject of Malfoy Harry turned cold again, and called the aurors in? She couldn't risk it. Not again.

Which left Ginny. And while the latest Mrs Potter was loyal to a fault to her husband, Hermione was hoping that she'd be just as loyal to one of her best friends. Maybe Harry had said something to her, given some indication that he was glad he had spared Draco's life. Either that or she thought Draco was dead too.

"Dammit." Hermione jumped off the couch and paced restlessly across the room. She had no idea what to do. Yes, she could do the whole secret relationship thing with Draco, but she had a sneaky feeling that the first thing Harry would do when he found out, and he _would_ find out she knew from past experience, would be to call the aurors. So somehow she needed to get it straight with Harry that this was what she wanted, no matter how weird and backwards it seemed to him.

Yeah, whatever.

The phone rang, interrupting her pacing and she snatched it up. The number was withheld.

"What?"

"Granger, are you alright?" The familiar voice stopped her cold. "Hermione?"

"I'm fine, why do you ask?" Hermione asked, her tone more clipped than she had intended.

"You just snapped at me. It's usually a good indication. What's up?" Hermione sighed.

"Nothing really. Just…"

"You wish you could talk to Potter."

"You know I won't." Hermione said defensively.

"Yeah, I do." Nevertheless, Hermione could hear the guarded casualness of his voice. "Doesn't mean you don't wish you could."

"I mean, even if I did and he threatened to tell the aurors…I'd go right back and tell them that he saved you then."

"You could." Draco agreed. Hermione sighed again. "Hermione, talk to him if it'll make it easier."

"But you-"

"I know. But think of it this way, Granger. As it stands, you can pretend you still think I'm dead, and forget about me. You can keep seeing me and keep it a secret from Potter. Or you can talk to Potter and blackmail him into keeping his mouth shut so that you, his long-suffering best friend, can finally have something for yourself. And let's face it, I'm hardly nurturing an underground resurgence for Voldemort."

"You'd have leadership problems." Hermione agreed softly. She heard Draco laugh softly.

"Yeah, we would." There was a pause. "Talk to him, Hermione. You won't be happy otherwise."

"And if he tells the aurors?"

"You can visit me in prison." Draco replied easily. "But Krysta will have to live with you." Hermione smiled at that.

"Thank you." She whispered, curling up in the corner of her couch. "You make this so easy."

"Anything." He replied softly.

They talked for the rest of the night.

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Please please please review!


	9. Finding Fate

Wow, last one. Sorry its taken me so long, folks, but y'know how it is. Hope you like it, PLEASE review! Istalindar

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Ginny Potter wasn't much of a Muggle cook. Muggle ovens didn't turn themselves off when the food was done, or at the very least, hers didn't, nor could the vegetables peel and cut themselves while she was preparing the meat. This meant that the whole endeavor was great effort and took the majority of the day. Harry, of course, didn't understand the point behind it…magic had been his lifesaver, not something he'd taken advantage of from birth.

Hermione, on the other hand, still understood. She turned up hours early as always, horrifying Ginny by putting an apron over the green silk evening dress she'd worn for the occasion and joining in the cooking process. Still it did give Ginny more than three seconds to change herself. She loved throwing these mini-dinner parties, which gave her the chance to dress up without the stress of public parties. Harry humored her, completely clueless to the psyche behind it but he accepted that it must be a woman thing and left it at that. Plus, he never complained. Even when she knew the food was disgusting, both he and Hermione ate and smiled and chatted and laughed and it made Ginny feel immeasurably better about both herself and her pitiful cooking skills.

Molly Weasley she was not.

"Hello!" Hermione stepped through the door, not bothering to knock. She hung her coat on the hat stand. It was a blue dress tonight, simple long silk with a deep v-neck and slightly off the shoulder sleeves. A solid silver teardrop hung on a plain chain and from small studs at her ears. She headed through the kitchen, taking up her customary apron and ignoring Ginny's customary protests.

"Hermione, really. Those dresses are expensive." Ginny tutted as she moved over at the counter so Hermione could help cut vegetables.

"Didn't you know? I'm famous, apparently." Hermione said with a grin. "Plus I'm surprisingly good at what I do and they pay me lots and lots and because I prefer private parties at the Potter residence to extended VIP holidays abroad every three weeks, I have nothing better to spend my money on."

Ginny tutted under her breath good-naturedly. She actually admired Hermione's ability to be completely at ease in anything, from blue silk designer evening dresses to jeans and an old t-shirt.

"Where's Harry, anyway?" Hermione asked as she slid a pile of chopped potatoes into a pot of boiling water and turning the heat down slightly.

"He's out, but he promised he would be back. Why?"

"We need to talk." Hermione shrugged nonchalantly, immediately alerting her old friend that something important was going on.

"About what?"

"Auror records." Hermione said. She smiled at Ginny. "Please leave it for now, Gin. I just need to talk to him first so I can sort my head out." Ginny held up her hands in surrender.

"Consider it dropped." She said with a smile. "So, what's new?"

"Not much." Hermione said, then proceded to launch into an explanation of her work. Ginny smiled and continued to cook.

Dinner was…edible. That was all there really was to it. Still, it was better than it had been and Hermione was pretty sure there was definite improvement in Ginny's cooking. She wasn't exactly a top chef herself, though, so it was all a learning experience anyway.

"Ginny, are you okay?" Hermione turned to Harry and saw him staring concernedly at his wife. Hermione looked as well and saw Ginny was pale and sitting back.

"Gin?" Hermione asked, setting her cutlery down.

"I'm fine." Ginny shook her head. "Just not feeling too well."

"Something you ate?" Harry asked. Hermione frowned.

"We all ate the same thing." She pointed out. She rose. "I'll take her upstairs."

"No, I will. I'm done anyway." Harry rose as well and circled the table to Ginny. "Come on, love. Let's get you upstairs." He guided her away and Hermione was left alone at the table. She started collecting the plates in, feeling as since she was quite happy leaving the rest of her plate and the other two were done she might as well.

Ten minutes later, Harry came back downstairs and stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching Hermione charm the dishes to wash themselves. When she finally turned to him, she saw he'd lost the tie and looked a little dishevelled.

"How is she?" Hermione asked, drying her hands on a tea-towel.

"Lying." Harry said with a tired smile.

"About what? She looked pale."

"The nausea was real." Harry smiled. "But it wasn't what she ate."

"So what was it?" Hermione asked with a frown.

"She's pregnant."

"What? Oh, congratulations, Harry!" Hermione said with a smile, stepping forward quickly to hug him. She pulled back. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Harry rubbed his face and paced halfway across the kitchen. "It's just…me. As a dad. It's just…weird."

"You'll be amazing." Hermione said with a smile. "As soon as you get over the shock, you'll be absolutely fine."

"Yeah." Harry smiled. "She said you wanted to talk to me about something."

"Yeah." Hermione nodded, pouring another two glasses of wine. She handed one to Harry while she sipped her own. Harry studied her, glass untouched in his hand.

"Something which is upsetting you." He guessed. "Or at the very least, unsettling."

"It's character development." Hermione said with a little smile. Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Oh?" He grinned. "Whose?" Hermione smiled back. It was a very Harry-esque question to ask.

"Yours." Her smile faded and Harry frowned slightly, unsure as to where this line of questioning was going. But judging from Hermione's body language, it probably wasn't anywhere he wanted to be.

"Go for it."

"Why did you lie to me about Draco Malfoy's death?"

As far as questions went, Hermione considered, it was pretty pointless. She knew exactly why Harry had lied to her about it. She just wanted him to admit it.

Harry, for his part, felt like she'd just dashed her wine in his face. Of all the things that could have bothered her, this…this was not what he'd thought. He met her gaze and found her deceptively innocent, but he recognised the glint in her eyes. It was the glint that had made her follow him all those years at Hogwarts: determination to make the world right. Or at least her idea of what was right. When he'd discovered the sketch in her room, confirming his worst suspicions, he'd felt betrayed. Years to think on it had stripped it of the hysteria of fresh betrayal, leaving the facts cold and bare. She'd been with Malfoy during the war. And from that knowledge, Harry could guess where the information on all those deatheaters came from. It was the only reason he didn't kill Malfoy on sight. That and the crippled girl Malfoy had been saving. Saving, Malfoy. The sight alone had confused Harry enough to hesitate, and then it was too late.

"Harry." Hermione's voice broke his thoughts. "Answer me."

"You know full well." Harry said. He sounded tired.

"I'd like you to tell me." Her voice was measured, calm. Her eyes said she was anything but.

"How did you find him?"

"You forget the Melpomene file all the time. It's filed next to Malfoy. I presume you didn't archive the file because it contained his current address."

Harry laughed softly, the irony reaching him easily. He had hidden Malfoy from her and then told her where to look.

"Yes, that's why. And I didn't tell you because I wanted him to stay away from you."

"And me to stay away from him."

"He's trouble." Harry shook his head.

"He's more than that, Harry." Hermione shook her head. "Harry…he's been in love with me longer than I know."

"He has a funny way of showing it."

_Do you remember the time-turner, Harry?_ Hermione wanted to ask. She wanted to tell him. She knew without a doubt that he wouldn't believe her.

"And I love him." She said plainly, almost surprised to find it true.

And Harry was lost for words. She was being honest, he had always been able to tell with her. She did love the snakey bastard who had bullied her for years. His arch-nemesis. Her betrayal. She actually loved the man.

"I needed to talk to you." She said quietly, "Because I want to see him, I want to be with him. But I can't do that behind your back. I won't do it behind your back. So I needed to tell you."

"Well, you did."

"And I want you to know that if you tell the aurors where he is I will never speak a word to you ever again."

"He told you that?" Harry asked.

"Yes."

Harry sighed, and downed the wine in his hand. He set the glass down and rubbed his hands over his face again.

"Hermione, he'll hurt you." He said finally.

"As much as anyone would."

"It's Malfoy."

"Draco. I know." Harry sighed, beaten. This was Hermione, and she always got what she wanted, even if she had to mow him down to get it.

"Fine." He shook his head. "Fine. See him. And yes, I will punch him if he hurts you. And yes, I will restrain myself from saying I told you so when he hurts you. Or at least I'll try." Hermione smiled widely, and flung herself into his arms again.

"Thank you!" She whispered fervently. "You have no idea what this means to me." She whispered, turning to kiss his jaw and returning back to her tight hug. Harry hugged her back.

"You know," he said softly, "I'm very glad that you told me." Hermione smiled over his shoulder. "That you trust me. With him."

"If I can't trust you, who can I trust?" Hermione replied with a smile, pulling back. She was so glad War-Harry hadn't made a comeback with his hard eyes and unforgiving heart.

"Very true." Harry grinned. "Let me guess, you want to go."

"Oh, I am. I think you and Ginny need to celebrate your baby. And I think I need to be very absent for those celebrations." Hermione grinned. Harry smiled back.

"I'm going to be a dad." Hermione laughed and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

"I'm going to dash up to say goodnight to Ginny." She said over her shoulder as she left the kitchen and headed upstairs. A few minutes later she was back down and with a final swift kiss for Harry, she grabbed her coat and was gone. Harry shook his head, accepting that he would never understand her, and headed up to his pregnant wife.

"Better?" Ginny asked with a wan smile from the bed. Harry lay down beside her.

"She's in love with Draco Malfoy." He said quietly, fingertips tracing Ginny's cheek. She gave a contented sigh and smiled.

"I thought so."

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Hermione apparated into Draco's front garden and stood for a moment, staring at the house. Then finally she stepped forward and knocked on the door. Draco opened it and stared at her. She smiled shyly and stepped forward into his arms. Draco ducked his head and kissed her deeply, holding her tightly to him.

And the timeline was restored, albeit a lifetime behind schedule.

Fin.

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